Service dog's accident recovery worries owner

POCOMOKE CITY, Md. -- Teona Campbell combed the cornfields, a T-shirt tied to one leg and a pair of leggings tied to the other.

She left bowls of water in each field around the white farmhouse.

It seemed a bit hopeless. There are hundreds of acres of corn around this house near Pocomoke City.

But Campbell had to find Lady, her 4-year-old Chihuahua.

“I went through all these cornfields,” says Campbell, 24. “I felt like I lost my child. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat.”

Likely, most dog owners feel lost when a pet strays. But Campbell has a particular reason for needing Lady.

Campbell suffers from epilepsy – the result of breaking her neck in a car accident a few years ago. And Lady has the uncanny ability to predict Campbell’s seizures.

A fateful meeting

Campbell and Lady met in the hospital following the California car crash in 2011.

Campbell couldn’t move the right side of her body. Someone thought a puppy might cheer her.

It did the trick. But there was more.

After several visits, the puppy’s owner noticed Lady could sense the onset of Campbell’s seizures.

“She makes a whining noise … then a growl,” Campbell says. “Then she’ll jump on my chest.”

The tiny dog paws at Campbell’s chest, and Campbell knows to rest until the seizure passes.

“She’ll lay her head on my chest,” Campbell says. “She’ll just stay there until I’m completely calm and I’m OK.

“And I give her a treat and she’s done her job.”

So the puppy’s owner gave her to Campbell and suggested Lady become a certified service dog.

Losing Lady

It was a method a dog trainer suggested – dragging items with Campbell’s scent through the fields in the hope of guiding Lady through the corn.

The day she was lost, Lady, Campbell and boyfriend Miles Hutt had arrived by Greyhound bus from their home in Victorville, Calif., about 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

They’d come to help his parents, Peter and Lena Hutt, with their cleaning business.

There was a family picnic that evening. But the bus trip had been hard on Campbell, and she was suffering the after-effects of seizures. She went into the house and fell asleep.

When she woke at 1 a.m., she realized Lady was missing. The others had thought Lady was resting with Campbell.

“I was so distraught,” Campbell recalls. “I was going through the cornfields with a flashlight. I’m just screaming her name.”

But the tiny Chihuahua was lost in acres upon acres of corn. It seemed hopeless.

Desperate, Campbell and the Hutt family made posters and Facebook pages.

Finally, they received the tip to use Campbell’s scent to lead Lady back home.

It worked. The next morning – after seven days missing – Lady appeared at the farmhouse.

Right away, however, Campbell knew something was wrong.

“She tried to walk and she just dropped,” says Campbell. “It was like she was paralyzed.

“Oh, my God, something’s very wrong with her,” she recalls saying.

They realized Lady had been struck by a vehicle.

A local veterinary service told the family that Lady’s injuries were severe and they were sent to a specialist in Annapolis.

A consultation at Anne Arundel Veterinary Emergency Clinic confirmed multiple fractures and displacement of the dog’s pelvis as well as a broken femur. On Aug. 27, Layfield Veterinary Services in Princess Anne performed surgery to repair Lady’s femur.

Hutt says he’s simply thankful the dog dragged herself home when she did. The corn in the field across from his house was harvested later that day.

“Lady just gives (Campbell) a lot of comfort and peace,” he says. “(She's) such a gentle dog.”

Campbell has used the last of her money to buy the pain pills for Lady. Hutt is hoping animal lovers will reach out to help the young dog who helps the young woman.

“All the love and comfort (Lady has given) really needs to be returned to her,” says Hutt.

To donate money to help with Lady's surgery costs, visit: https://wesharecrowdfunding.com/PeterShareThePassion