From the Washington Post comes the story of a family border collie whose 5:30 a.m. wake-up call saved the future, and possibly the life, of a family member.

Daines and Amanda were woken up by their dog Axel early on a Saturday morning in their home in Spring, Texas, and they couldn't remember a time when he so desperately wanted to go outside, or so they thought.

However, once taken downstairs by Daines, Axel began frantically clawing at the bedroom door of Amanda's son Gabriel. Inside, Gabriel was already awake—because he was having a stroke on the left side of his brain.

The 17-year-old Gabriel had had a headache early in the day he remembered, but it went away shortly after posing for his senior year school pictures in a black suit and bowtie. Coming home, he played some video games and then went to sleep, but woke up around 5:00, walked into the living room, felt he couldn't move his right arm, fell over, watched the objects in the room seem to magnify, and decided to go back to sleep.

Daines, upon hearing some of this from a visibly befuddled Gabriel with slurred speech, rushed him to a Memorial Hermann Health System hospital in Houston where at approximately 6:30 a.m., doctors informed the family Gabriel was having a stroke after a blood vessel broke in his brain and cut off oxygen to millions of neurons.

"It's amazing how adamant a dog was knowing something's going on," said Sabih Effendi, a neurosurgeon who treated Gabriel, and who told the family that if Axel hadn't intervened when he did, Gabriel might have been mute, wheelchair-bound, or worse.

As it has happened, Gabriel's physical, speech, and behavioral therapy has restored much of his previous abilities. The goalkeeper for his high school soccer team regained his ability to walk, use his right arm to play his Nintendo Switch, talk clearly, and complete algebra problems on his laptop.

He told The Washington Post he hopes to finish homeschooling this year and go to school for engineering next year, as well as enroll for next year's squad and hopefully hold down the number 1 shirt between the posts.

Dogs have been known to detect strokes in people. Regarding certain chemicals, the special vomeronasal organ in their noses can detect changes in human physiology, which may include blood pressure. The American Heart Association has found that people living alone with a dog had a 27% better chance of surviving a stroke than those living alone.

As to the hero of the story, Amanda said that Axel has hardly left Gabriel's side since the September 8th discharge from the hospital. She has commissioned a medal to hang around the front of Axel's collar in honor of his life-saving support of her son.

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