Having a loyal dog doesn’t just bring companionship—it can also save your life. For Canadian military veteran Darren Cropper of Bonfield, Ontario, this couldn’t be more true. In a moment of crisis, his one-year-old puppy Bear, a Siberian Husky-Golden Retriever mix, performed what many have dubbed “puppy CPR,” ultimately saving his life following a massive heart attack.
In August 2022, Cropper began his morning like any other. He woke up early and headed downstairs to watch television. But in an instant, everything went black. Darren had collapsed, struck by a catastrophic heart attack. What happened next was a miraculous series of events sparked entirely by his dog’s instincts.
“I wasn’t in any pain, but everything felt fuzzy,” Cropper later recalled to CTV News. “I was coming downstairs… When I hit the bottom step, that’s all I could remember.”
Bear, sensing something was terribly wrong, immediately leapt into action. According to reports, Bear jumped onto Darren’s chest and began rhythmically bouncing up and down for several hours—an action that resembled cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The impromptu life-saving effort was so intense that Bear’s paw prints were found on Darren’s chest.
Darren’s wife, Janice, was the next to respond. Alerted by Bear’s howling from downstairs, she hurried to find Darren unresponsive on the floor and called 911 right away. Emergency services rushed him to a nearby hospital where doctors determined he had experienced a “widowmaker” heart attack—where one of the main coronary arteries becomes completely blocked.
Bear’s instincts kept Darren alive long enough for emergency medical assistance, and ultimately surgery, to take place. Once in stable condition, physicians performed an emergency triple bypass operation. Doctors noted that without Bear’s immediate and sustained efforts to stimulate Darren’s heart, the outcome would have been tragically different.
- Bear is a mix of two intelligent and loyal breeds: Siberian Husky and Golden Retriever.
- Both of Bear’s parents were trained service dogs, potentially contributing to his instinctual response.
- Veterinarians and doctors described Bear’s actions as “life-saving.”
Darren vividly recalls regaining consciousness to find Bear still on his chest. “If Bear hadn’t jumped on my chest, I wouldn’t be alive,” Cropper explained. “Basically, he did Puppy CPR and got my blood flowing. No one taught him that.”
Two years on, Bear’s life-saving instincts have been formally recognized. In 2024, he was inducted into the prestigious Purina Animal Hall of Fame, a program honoring pets across Canada for acts of extraordinary bravery and heroism. Bear joins a distinguished group of animals that have saved lives, comforted their humans, and performed deeds of remarkable loyalty and intelligence.
Returning home from the hospital was deeply emotional for Darren, but Bear’s love and bond offered him the comfort he needed during his recovery. “When I first saw him when I got home,” Darren said, “he came right to me and jumped in my arms and I just broke down crying.”
Today, Bear remains a beloved member of the Cropper family—not only as a companion but as a hero who instinctively knew how to save a life when it mattered most. What started as a quiet morning turned into a testament to the unexplainable connection between humans and their dogs—a bond powerful enough to bring someone back from the brink of death.
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