Meet Honey, a four-pound Chihuahua that fights well above her weight. As Anne Marie and Paul Desrochers stand in the front yard of their Chilliwack home, the dog patters around the lawn, stopping now and then to let out a playful but protective bark.
Later, the dog heads inside with the family. It takes Honey several tries before its small, plump body makes the leap onto the couch.
While resting on the lap of eight-year-old Jenna, the granddaughter of Anne Marie and Paul, Honey happily licks Jenna's chin.
"No, Honey," says Jenna. With a purple-polished nail, the child gently directs the dog's attention toward a camera snapping their photo. "Look that way."
The tiny and obedient pup is quite possibly the reason Jenna is alive.
"It's a good thing she was here because if she wasn't, Jenna might not be here," said Paul of the brave rescue Honey performed last week, when his granddaughter was attacked by an escaped pit bull.
Jenna, who was on spring break last week, was at her grandparents' home for a sleepover Tuesday. Soon after arriving, the girl went into the yard to look for bunnies.
Within minutes, disaster struck.
According to Anne Marie, a neighbor was trying to get her pit bull mix into her fenced yard when it escaped and headed straight for Jenna.
The girl ran toward the house but the Pit Bull, an adult male, knocked Jenna over and clamped onto her head.
Honey, 4, ran to Jenna's rescue.
"She just did enough to distract that dog and then it chased her," recalled Anne Marie.
In the brief moment that Honey drew the pit bull's attention from Jenna, the neighbour was able to regain control of her dog. Honey then ran to the front door of the home and alerted Anne Marie to what happened.
"It was that yelp like you're hurt," Anne Marie said.
She came to the door and saw Honey bloodied and covered in marks that looked like bites. She then saw Jenna and the neighbour - Jenna was holding her face.
The neighbor, who was in tears, said, "My dog's bit Jenna," and Anne Marie ran over.
"When she let her hand go I just screamed," the grandmother said.
On one side of her head a chunk of skin had been ripped off and her skull was showing. She had injuries to her left eye. There was another wound to the other side of her head. She was covered in blood. The grandparents rushed Jenna to hospital.
Mom Leslie was out with her cousin when Anne Marie called to tell her what happened and to meet them at Chilliwack General Hospital.
"It's just immediate panic," Leslie said. "Knowing which dog did it, I did not know what I would see when I got there. I assumed it was going to be bad."
Leslie arrived at the hospital first and when Jenna walked in she "just lost it."
"I didn't know if she still had an eye - there was just so much blood," Leslie recalled.
Doctors began to work on Jenna immediately. It took three hours and hundreds of stitches to repair the damage. Jenna will see a plastic surgeon Wednesday. Through everything, Jenna didn't shed a tear.
On the way home, when they stopped at the drugstore, Jenna turned to Anne Marie and said, "Well, it's a good thing I didn't get hurt, right Nanny?"
The owner voluntarily euthanized the dog the day after the attack.
(The Province - Mar 27, 2013)
