Tiny Chihuahua saves life of 1-year-old Colo. boy attacked by rattlesnake
Published: Sunday, July 22, 2007 | 2:42 PM ET
Canadian Press

MASONVILLE, Colo. (AP) - Zoey is a Chihuahua, but when a rattlesnake lunged at her owners' one-year-old grandson, she was a real bulldog.

Booker West was splashing his hands in a birdbath in his grandparents' northern Colorado back yard when the snake slithered up to the toddler, rattled and struck. Five-pound Zoey jumped in the way and took the bites.

"She got in between Booker and the snake, and that's when I heard her yipe," said Monty Long, the boy's grandfather.

The dog required treatment and for a time it appeared she might not survive. Now she prances about.

"These little bitty dogs, they just don't really get credit," Booker's grandma Denise Long told the Loveland Daily Reporter-Herald.
© The Canadian Press, 2007



Denise Long holds her grandson, Booker West, 1, as he pets Zoey, held by grandfather Monty Long in the backyard of their home near Masonville.