Family Dog Credited With Saving Pregnant L.I. Woman

EAST MEADOW, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- A puppy is being hailed a hero after being credited with saving a Long Island woman and her baby.

Richard Giannetta, 33, knew something was wrong when he heard his dog, Louie, barking ferociously last Friday afternoon.

"I heard the dog barking like crazy, like I've never heard him bark before," Giannetta told 1010 WINS' Mona Rivera on Tuesday.

He found the year-old Goldendoodle upstairs in his North Merrick home next to his pregnant wife who was napping.

"I saw him on the bed on all fours barking at my wife," Giannetta said. "Just an agitated bark like something was wrong, I could just tell."

"I turned her over, her tongue was in her mouth and she had white foam all around her mouth," he said.

His wife, Janelle, was having a seizure and she was taken to Nassau University Medical Center, where she was diagnosed with eclampsia -- a potentially deadly condition in which the mother develops extremely high blood pressure, causing seizures.

The high blood pressure condition develops in one of every 2,000 births, according to experts.

"Typically, there are warning signs but many of the signs that you see you think maybe its just the pregnancy in itself," Dr. Peter Hong of Nassau University Medical Center told CBS 2's Carolyn Gusoff.

Janelle who was 26 weeks pregnant had to have an emergency Caesarean section. She gave birth to her daughter, Charlotte Marie, early Saturday morning. The newborn weighed in at just one pound, seven ounces, Gusoff reported.

Both mother and baby are recovering at the hospital and Giannetta is planning a big thanks for Louie.

"Steak...whatever he wants he can have. He'll definitely get a lot of bones," Giannetta said. "We're lucky to have an eager, rambunctious 1-year-old pup."

"They were best friends before this but now, forget it," he told Gusoff.

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