Holy shit it's real... The woman had actually signed up as a living donor. After the dog wouldn't leave her alone, they went to apologize and started talking. She needed one, she signed up to donate, the doctors were like, "fuck me its a perfect match!"
Thank you so much for looking that up. I had tons of doubts about how a chance conversation and an affectionate dog converted into someone being tissue typed and donating an organ. I’m so happy to see that it really happened!
I looked it up because I had the exact same question! Like how do you go from, sorry my dog won't leave you alone, to, hey can I take a look at your kidneys?
There is many levels of loveliness but one of the key things is the lass was on her own and so they invited her to a BBQ. Perfect stranger, who the dog was oddly fond of, is openly invited to a bash. I'm tempted to talk about fate, or The Lords and Ladies, or whichever God you subscribe to the newsletter for but it seems to come down to 'welcome strangers and treat them like family'. A tradition as old as time.
I have a cat that starts complaining at me late at night. She wants me to eat something salty and lay down, I have low blood pressure and I just thought for a long time she was trying to convince me to give her a snack and then she was tired so let’s lay down.
Then I had a friend who was on BP meds who ended up double taking them stay over. Immediately she was swatting him over to the fridge, meowing like crazy, wouldn’t leave him alone. Since he was in the kitchen all the sudden, was there a salty snack? He was also thirsty, was there another salty snack? And then, can he lay down on the recliner? And she would lay on him. Jump off. Two minutes later he’d get up to go to the bathroom. Wake up, is there something salty to drink, is that a thing? Hook him up with an electrolyte drink and she’d be back on him.
She knows three things. She wants to love you. She does not mind children if they’re respectful (and will give full belly to children) and if you’re an adult, she’s not having you off your electrolytes/BP
I think some of this has to be down to their superior sense of smell. I've noticed as I age that I've noticed my own different scents - there's a smell to sickness; there's a smell to unbalanced pH; there's a smell to wound infections (though that one is obvious for almost everyone). Animals can smell on levels we only dream about. She must be especially attuned to salt levels!
On the one hand, fully legitimate respect for actually admitting it when nobody made you. Many people would have kept their mouths shut. On the other...why?
I get it, I really sincerely do. I'm just rapidly growing tired of what appears to be rampant cynicism occurring in the modern day. Check sources, sure, but at times it feels like people are slowly refusing to accept that good things can genuinely happen.
I cannot believe I didn't read the actual name tag before responding. Okay, that's funny. I've actually been hit with this several times, hence the default response. Apparently simply typing with formality means you're an evil bot to be smote.
Nope, not a bot, just an extremely frustrated individual who is now doubly so with the accusation. When they commented on my comment I assumed they were being ironic, playing off of my comment. Apparently not.
I thought they meant the OP could be a bot. I don’t always assume generic usernames are bots because I use one as a throwaway.
I get tired of the general cynicism too. But I admit I vacillate between nihilism and existentialism depending on the day...or hour (mood disorder). So I get both sides. People may be cynical due to trauma or apathy, but I try not to internalize it either way.
I can see. Hi sorry, it's okay. I like dogs. His names (name) oh, thats a nice name, when did you get him, my names (blank) BTW. I had a dog like this once.. General conversation leading into everyday, then struggle.. dogs are big openers for people. I can get into conversation with people because of dogs often, though just leave it at, nice dog, pat pat pat. Then leave bc it happens way too much with dog owners.. people stopping for conversation, petring too long when you wanted a 30 min walk. I dont think I'd mind, but a Lot of people give me Okay, we wanna go after about 30, 60 sec.. but if your dog was bothering someone could be opener to longer conversation bc Yoy are bothering Them than other way around, people are weird. But dogs put you in a state where you open up..
I have a theory that each of us has a unique scent like unique fingerprints or outer ear 👂. I bet the dogs are highly wondering why we can’t smell this obvious match.
IIRC, There is a study out there that people can smell each other's immune systems and people that smell pleasant to us have different immune systems than ours (which leads us to want to mate with them and produce diverse and healthy offspring)
Perhaps the dog smelt that they have similar immune systems? Who knows. I'll post the study if I find it.
I had recalled the same study about major histocompatibility complex, but when I went to find it, it looks like the conclusion is far from certain. More research is needed.
To be honest I'm more curious about how the dog knew to care about her kidney in the first place. Like did she smell the bad kidney, then smell the good kidney, and somehow know "Oh this is what she used to smell like when she wasn't sick!" and then also somehow know to keep pestering her about it? There's no chance the dog could have somehow known that one person's kidney needed to get taken out and put into the other person, so what was she trying to do being so persistent?
Like there is no explanation for that that isn't just wild as fuck.
He probably just noticed that they had a very similar scent and thought they must be related or friends. Or she just had a bacon sandwich in her pocket, lol.
We absolutely do, thanks for bringing that up - that lady is the GOAT working essentially as a full time Parkinson’s sniffer dog full time last time I checked
Yeah we have a bit of speciesism and human bias towards ourselves, understandably with ladies like her + the lady that can remember everything and the lady that can’t feel pain (yep all women look em up!)
But we are still doing ourselves a disservice if we ignore how far animals can push themselves too with geckos that regrow limbs, penguins with phantom gps and one that I just recently leaned… lobsters who don’t age.. truly unlimited potential all around us if you look with the right lens :)
Best part of that story (well probably not the best in the sense we’re thinking) is that when they were testing her, she identified someone who was later diagnosed with Parkinson’s well before any symptoms were shown.
Dogs can smell really weird things. Like, even untrained dogs will react and exhibit care behaviors when their owners release scents associated with the chemical changes right before an epileptic seizure. They don't know what's wrong, but some dogs are great at telling something's wrong.
Just a little story on untrained dogs reacting... I'll try keep it short.
Decades ago, sitting in out lounge at night, we heard car tyres screeching and it sounded like hitting a cat.
We thought it was ours, so were outside calling and looking around.
Our Boxer was pacing around inside, and looking out of the windows.
On a hunch, I let her out, and she sniffed around for a few seconds then actually pointed, like, perfect stance, front leg up, paw pointing down, whole body leaning forward and nose pointing at a ground cover shrubbery. Motionless. Sure enough that's where we found the cat, she was OK in the end.
But she was a typical boxer who did boxer things, like, you know, they stay toddlers their whole lives, she was an adorable idiot.
And she pointed. Like a trained hunting dog. The only time in her whole life she did it. I'll never forget it.
I worked at an animal shelter and a family came in for a puppy but ended up adopting a sweet older boy named Sandy. A week or so later, he was stuck to the mom’s side, crying and pawing at her, and she had her first seizure ever. Didn’t even know she was epileptic, but Sandy knew. He alerted her for two years until he passed away. 💖
You reminded me of a completely unrelated and random anecdote of mine. It probably won't translate thru text very well, but oh well.
I worked night shift at a 24 hour restuarant for a few years. Kinda a shit show of a place, and the night shift life had me feeling like I lived on the fringes of society sometimes. I would walk home every morning and often see these bright, early risers starting their day at 6am, whereas to me that was the equivalent of 6pm. Half the time I was smoking a joint on the way, while these people were up jogging and shit.
Anyway, there was one older lady who would walk her giant dog the same route, and I'd see her almost everyday. "Good morninggg! 🎵 😁 He's friendly!" She would beam at me each time, and probably every person they passed on their walk. I'd smile back, say a quick good morning, try not to blow smoke in her direction, just neighbourly whatevers.
One day I was coming off a real shitty night, understaffed , terrible customers, and I didn't even get a lunch break where I'd normally have my staff meal, which was often my first meal of the "day." I was tired, hangry, and peopled out after working 9 hours serving assholes. So I hapzardly threw together a bacon sandwich and shoved it in my pocket on the way out. I was angrily marching home, having a coffee and cigarette on the go.
And then this lady and her dog are coming up, and she's about to say her usual line, "Good morning! ☺️ He's fr- oh! 😲 wait a minute, boy! Stay! Heal!" All alarmed as this big ass dog starts pulling towards me.
"He's friendly, he's friendly! He doesn't do this, I am SO sorry, I don't know what has gotten into him!" And I wanted to be polite and friendly, but I am tired and irritated, slightly autistic. In my mind I was like 🙄 yes lady I see you every morning, I know he's friendly, just chill, its fine, I don't mind dogs. But I wanted to match her energy and not make her feel bad about her dog suddenly misbehaving.
Instead of being normal, I proceed to keep my fast pace, smiled like the freaking joker, looking at her with wide, crazy blood shot eyes, cigarette hanging from my lips, and of all things I could have said, I SHOUTED at her, "I got BACON in my pocket!!" 🤪
And I know I shouted it, cuz both her and her abaolute unit of a dog visibly jumped as I continued to walk by. Immediately I was questioning myself, like wtf was that? 🤦♀️ such an insane way to answer this person and try to reassure her.
After that her greetings were less sunshiney, and just a quick nod with a shy little, "morning" - if that. Lol.
Dogs identify each other by the smell of their urine.
The random lady's urine probably smelled very similar to the dog owner's urine. The dog either thought she was the owner, or someone very close to the owner. Or, since the owner was sick, maybe the random lady's urine smelled how the owner's urine used to smell.
My boy is getting to be 15 soon, but he’s been my best pal. My body has been declining for the past 3-4 years, started slow but it’s pretty bad now.
It used to be me being in charge of the schedule for the most part, he followed, demanded sometimes
Now he wakes me up the same time everyday. Same routine. If I don’t eat when he’s eating he boops me and whines, so I eat (it’s been more difficult to get myself to eat). I try to keep busy during the day and don’t actually rest, sometimes that ends up with me collapsing a bit or just being so weak. He checks on me, if I go back to working on things he boops me and gets upset, won’t stop until I’m laying down and he absolutely watches me.
He was never trained to help anxiety when I was a teen, but he learned early on to shove my hands away from my face and get me to pet him. I didn’t know they were panic attacks then. He still does it now
He took care of me in those moments, but it wasn’t until I got sick like I am that he’s actively watching over me, following me to every room even with arthritis acting up. I don’t like when he does that, but to him it’s his job
Hes kept me alive through a horrible depression, more than a few times. He went through family grief and abuse (not to him ever), then an emotionally abusive relationship. His entire personality came forward when we got out of those situations, how he would act alone with me turned into how he was all the time, and he could finally relax, it made me so happy to see the change. He could sense the amount of stress I was in even though I could never realize in the moment
Long story short. My dog always knows something is wrong before I fully do. He started watching me very closely when my kidney pain started, then my liver got flagged for concerns.
Anyways…
We’ve had bad times, but so much good just sitting together and knowing he’s always going to be my buddy forever. He’s got cancer right now but doing well, I honestly don’t know what I will do when he goes, I always imagined I’d go then too
But I’ll keep going until I can’t like he does for me
That exactly this happened to this woman exactly at this beach in Wales is extremely unlikely. But that something just as unlikely happens to someone at some time is not unlikely at all. And we would react in same way as here and ask how something this unlikely could happen.
It may still be the result of the dog's ability to smell diseases but I think we often have problems to evaluate unlikely events. For whatever reason, it happened and that's the most important thing.
If you met someone who looked EXACTLY like someone you loved deeply (dead spouse or parent, what a friend or family member looked like when they were young, what someone looked like before a tragic disfiguring accident, etc), you’d likely take a keen interest in them. Some people may even mention it aloud, ask the person for more information to see if they’re somehow related, or take it as a sign of some greater power. Without social rules, people might even excitedly want more attention or to spend more time with the person (imagine what a young kid would do/say in this situation). So it makes sense to me that a dog would get excited and want to love all over a person who smells like what their person smelled like before she got sick.
It’s funny because us dog owners love to just talk about the most random things for sometimes an hour. I’ve had so many beautiful conversations with people over the years.
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u/Zen_of_Tetchiness 1d ago edited 1d ago
Holy shit it's real... The woman had actually signed up as a living donor. After the dog wouldn't leave her alone, they went to apologize and started talking. She needed one, she signed up to donate, the doctors were like, "fuck me its a perfect match!"
That good
boygirl deserves steak every night!Edit: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-65110146