A CLEVER pooch has learned to perform CPR – being taught to jump up and down on a mannequin’s chest and even to “listen for breathing”.
In training, Emily Anderson’s cocker spaniel Leo carried a miniature first aid box in his mouth before laying it gently next to a prone mannequin.
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Dog trainer Emily, 30, then uses the command ‘nose’ to prompt the two-year-old to put his own head to the dummy’s lips and check whether it’s ‘breathing’.
Leo then jumps off his front paws and on to the doll’s chest five times before going back to their nose and repeating the routine a second time.
Emily, from Aberdeen, said: “Leo learned CPR as part of a task called paw tricks for the International Trick Dog Competition. He has won the Champions League six times in a row.
“He jumps up and down when I say ‘up’ and checks for the breathing when I say ‘nose’. I taught him to check for breath using a target stick on the mouth of the dummy until he learned where he needed to keep his I do not know.
“Leo weighs 17kg which is a bit too heavy to have him jumping on me.
“Every day he totally amazes me. He’s a real dog in a million, I’ll never have another Leo.
“The things he does constantly surprise me because I don’t think they’re possible and he masters them in 20 minutes.
“I’ve been training him ever since I brought him home at eight weeks. I already had his half sister Phoebe so I actually met him when he was three days old.”
Footage of Leo performing the CPR has been viewed more than 38,000 times on social media
One commenter said: “So clever. My spaniel would be running off with the first aid kit refusing to let go.”
I have a 25ft shark sticking out of my house – I’m locked in a bitter row with the council who are making life hell
Another person wrote: “That would definitely bring me round. Dogs are so much cleverer than us.”
And a third added: “OMG. You training him to do this is nothing short of a miracle.”
Emily teaches Leo a new trick every week and builds them up methodically by making them slightly more difficult.
We told earlier how he learned to paint his own masterpieces – with one design even selling for £100 at a charity auction.
Emily said: “Leo is so incredibly happy when he’s training.
“He’ll fall asleep watching TV afterwards but ends up waking himself up by wagging his tail so much.”
DEATH SCARE
Emily ramped up Leo’s training after he almost died in March 2020 when he contracted a parasite called giardia.
She said: “I thought he was just sleeping under my desk one afternoon at work but when it came for me to leave, he just didn’t stand up.
“Leo had gone into shock so I rushed him into the emergency vet. They thought it was Lyme disease initially but a few days later it came back as giardia.
“It shouldn’t make dogs that ill but Leo had taken it badly and it sent him into shock. It was a horrible few days.
“Incredibly he recovered physically after only a few days but it really affected him mentally and made him very anxious.
“We started to get back to normal and then we went into lockdown. So from nowhere we were at home all of the time and he was just really sad.
“He wasn’t like the happy dog he was before and I knew I had to do something to help him out of his slump.
“I knew he’d always enjoyed his training so I decided to focus on doing a bit more of that with him and that’s how the tricks started.”