HAWAIIAN STYLE
Kane'ohe dogs knew one good turn deserved another
Whenever one of Pam and Allan Schildknecht's two pooches lets loose with a rare bark, the Kane'ohe residents do their Lassie joke: "So, what? — think Timmy's fallen down the well again?"
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
But they've learned that man's best friend can really be an alert, barking rescuer.
Pam Schildknecht said her dogs Anapau, left, and Maka rescued her when she broke her elbow in her front yard.
And the two dogs — not the first to be adopted by the Schildknechts after being abandoned or orphaned — were able to repay the loyalty shown by their owners.
Pam was out gardening on Jan. 7 when she tripped on a protruding sewer cleanout valve in their front yard. She landed on her left elbow, breaking the arm in several places.
"I went down and I heard the snap," she said. She screamed for help. But in their cul-de-sac at Puali Koa Place in the early afternoon, "I knew I was in for a long wait."
Anapau and Maka appeared on the scene to check her out, nuzzling their faces near the face of their mistress to reassure her.
"I wasn't really in the mood!" she remembers thinking, until one of the dogs licked her face. "It was comforting," she said. Her faithful pooches stayed by her side. "They knew something was really wrong."
The louder she screamed, the more forcibly they began to run around and bark. And bark, Lassie-like.
She was in agony for nearly an hour before a neighbor from down the street, Kai Holland, came to see what the commotion was about. An ambulance took her to Castle Medical Center, where she underwent three hours of surgery.
Pam, 54, and Allan, 56, unabashedly admit they're dog people. Well, except for the cat and the fish.
Their mangy collection of mutts began years ago with a 10-year-old poi, Kalei, found abandoned in Ka'a'awa, who has since died. Anapau, a lumbering Lab/Shar-Pei mix, came from a Navy family that let it go after their baby was born. Makamae, a little sandy-colored terrier, was found on Sand Island.
Returning home with the starved little mutt badly in need of a good meal and "canine makeover," Allan's reason for adopting Maka was simple: "She is so ugly, she makes me look good," he said. "I had to take her. No one else would have."
Now, the kolohe little pup with bulging eyes and playful demeanor never leaves Allan's side.
The dogs and cat have the run of the Schildknechts' big, fenced property, romping in the adjacent wooded grove, even teasing the fish in the yard's portion of Kawa Stream.
Pam is in the middle of six or seven weeks of recuperation.
She repaid her savior pets with a $200 shopping spree at Pet's Discount — and tells what she calls the "warm and fuzzy" tale of their loyalty at the drop of a dog biscuit.
Do the dogs realize the part they played in her rescue? "Oh, yeah!" she said. "Once I got home, their attitude changed — they stayed with me and were quiet. They'd sniff at my (injured) arm."
It was tit for tat: She had saved their lives. Her dogs repaid the favor.
The Advertiser's Wade Kilohana Shirkey is kumu of Na Hoaloha O Ka Roselani hula halau. He writes on Island life.
