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Little boy's best friend
Dog alerts mom to choking son

She's man's best friend, and then some.

Ever since three-year-old Cole Hein experienced the first of his still-unexplained choking fits, his family has been praying for an extra set of eyes and ears. That help arrived two days ago, when Bingo -- a Jack Russell terrier trained to recognize the symptoms of Cole's condition -- finally came to live with Hein in Winnipeg.

UNDIAGNOSED ILLNESS A canine caretaker provided by the National Service Dogs Training Centre in Ontario, Bingo has spent the last six months learning to recognize the sounds of Cole gagging. The tyke's choking fits are symptoms of an undiagnosed illness that causes him to stop breathing for long periods of time, often until he turns blue.

Cole, his mom Mandi Kostiuk-Hein, and trainer Danielle Forbes spent yesterday reacquainting Bingo with her new family. Kostiuk-Hein said the reunion couldn't have gone smoother. "It went so good I was crying," said the Winnipeg mom, who's spent the last half-year orchestrating fundraising efforts to help offset the $12,000 cost of Bingo's training.

'TAKEN TO BINGO'
"And Cole has taken to Bingo very well. Cole loves Bingo ... He's only three, but he understands. He keeps telling people, 'Bingo is going to try.'" Forbes said Bingo has been trained -- using an audio recording of Cole's retching -- to bark loudly whenever the boy is seized by an attack. "Now when Cole has an episode for real, it'll just be a matter of following the same procedure," she said.

Cole's unusual plight has attracted some high-profile attention, drawing support from Eric Dodge -- an American country singer who wrote a song about the boy -- and from Winnipeg Blue Bomber Wes Lysack, who got involved after being approached by Kostiuk-Hein in a parking lot. "Our heartfelt thanks to everyone on their generosity," Kostiuk-Hein said yesterday. "It wasn't just donating money, it was also that people donated so much of their time ... Now we don't feel so alone anymore."

# posted by Cyber Bingo Online @ 7:43 AM