Fear is an emotion that everybody deals with occasionally — even if you are courageous and brave. Fear can also cause many other emotions to rise to the surface, including feelings of anxiety.
Being too afraid can also cause issues sleeping, as you are unlikely to fall asleep when you’re feeling anxious and scared.
That was certainly the case for Adalynn Leary, a young girl from Alaska, after a powerful earthquake shook the Leary family’s home in November 2018. Luckily, however, Adalynn found a way to soothe her fears.
After the earthquake, Adalynn, or Ady, was having some anxiety and difficulty sleeping. But Ady is a special girl, and she found a unique way to deal with her feelings of fear.
The master plan? Well, it involves her enormous pit bull friend named Fury.
The dog serves as a protector for the young girl, and the two have an amazing bond that cannot be broken. So when Ady had some issues with anxiety after the trauma of going through an earthquake, the pit bull was there to help her through it.
Although animals are unable to communicate with us verbally, it often feels like they know what we’re feeling without having to tell them. Fury the pit bull was very intuitive when it came to Ady’s anxiety and was with her every step of the way after the earthquake.
In the aftermath of the natural disaster, Ady was having some trouble sleeping alone in her crib. She felt unsafe, and it was Fury’s time to step in to help her cope. So what did the dog do? Snuggle up right next to the young girl!
Ady’s father had a camera set up in her room and captured the most adorable footage of the duo. After calling the dog onto her bed to sleep next to her and keep her feeling safe, she even covers up the dog carefully with her blanket.
After she tucks the dog in, she looks much calmer and ready to get some sleep.
Ady’s parents know how much the dog adores her and assure everyone that although the dog is large, it would never do anything to harm her and only wants to serve and protect the little girl.
Although there’s no evidence that Fury is dangerous, viewers from around the world have criticized the Learys for letting their young daughter sleep with such a large dog.
The Daily Mail quoted some of the family’s most vocal internet critics back in January 2019 when the video spread across social media.
Michelle Ann wrote,”Don’t leave your dog alone with your baby. Common sense should tell you this.”
In the same article, Ady’s father responded to critics, saying that he would normally never leave a child alone with an animal but that he has done over 100 hours of training with the pit bull. “Fury,” he added, “isn’t just any animal.”
“He knows it’s his job to have Ady under his protection and be her service dog anyway she needs,” he told the publication.
Some viewers speculated that the dog’s breed may have played a role in the video’s backlash. Not only are pit bulls banned in some countries, but the breed has also earned a bad reputation as being violent or aggressive. Browney Dickey, an American journalist, even wrote a book about pit bull stigma, “Pit Bull: The Battle over an American Icon.”
According to Dickey, misinformation plays a big role in how pit bulls are perceived. For example, dog fatalities are very rare, and the deaths that are ascribed to pit bulls are often misattributed.
“People who have studied these cases, like Jeffrey Sacks at the CDC, have shown that when it comes to fatalities caused by pit bulls, the breed identifications are often not accurate,” Dickey explained in an interview with National Geographic. “The title ‘pit bull’ has expanded so dramatically over the years that people are lumping any dog with a large head and short coat into that category rather than separating out each of the pit bull breeds.”
Dickey also points out that the history of pit bulls in the U.S tells a different story.
In fact, the dogs were quite popular during WWI and the Depression, according to Dickey’s research. At that time, the breed wasn’t seen as a menace; rather, they were all-American, representative of blue-collar workers and average citizens. However, the post-WWII boom began to change that. Dickey notes that the economic momentum led to a greater interest in kennel club breeds, and thus pit bulls fell out of favor with American pet owners. But one of the biggest shifts in public perception came in the 1970s when the humane movement began working to crack down on illegal dog fights.
And since then, pit bulls haven’t really been able to shake their reputation. In the end, it turns out that the Leary family isn’t so crazy to let their dog — a perfectly harmless pit bull — sleep with their young daughter, especially since he helps her feel better. Ady’s father summed it up nicely when he told The Dodo, “If you raise them with love, they only show love.”
This footage is too adorable for words, and you can watch it for yourself in the video below. What do you think about Ady and Fury’s story? Do you have a pet that helps you through rough times? Let us know, and pass this adorable video on to animal-loving family members and friends.
