Paisley

CALGARY, ALBERTA

Paisley, a long-legged Shepherd Lab Husky mix with a big heart, was rescued near Calgary, Alberta in 2015 by Kari Gregory and her four daughters. Although she was the last of her litter to be adopted, Paisley was always a gentle giant and fiercely loyal companion. She went beyond proving this when she saved her human sister’s life.

Kari’s daughter Perri, who was 20 at the time, was home from university for the summer. Around 1 am on July 8th, 2019, after everyone in the house had gone to bed for the night, Kari heard a loud thump in the kitchen. Thinking it was her mischievous cat Milli, Kari rolled over to go back to sleep. That’s when she heard Paisley wailing, a sound the family had never heard before and have never heard since.

That night Paisley didn’t sleep in her usual spot. Thinking Paisley had fallen or somehow injured herself in another part of the house, Kari jumped out of bed to find the dog. Instead, Kari found her daughter Perri lying on the kitchen floor having a seizure, something that had never happened before. Paisley was hovering around Perri and had been wailing to alert the family of the situation.  Kari called out to her other daughters for help and Perri was rushed to the hospital where she then experienced a grand mal seizure. While at the hospital, the care team in charge of Perri discovered she had a brain bleed and a fractured skull from the initial fall, which actually broke the ceiling light in her bedroom below the kitchen from the impact.

Perri spent three days in the trauma unit and spent many, many weeks recovering from the incident. But, today, Perri is alive and well thanks to Paisley’s heroic actions. To this day Perri has never experienced another seizure episode and does not have a seizure disorder--the neurology team says this was a random occurrence. Paisley’s insistent wailing and crying to wake the family that night saved Perri’s life. For Paisley’s heroic act of love, she is now an official inductee in the Purina Animal Hall of Fame.