ohmidog!

Daniel my brother you are older than me
Do you still feel the pain of the scars that won’t heal
Your eyes have died but you see more than I
Daniel you’re a star in the face of the sky …

– Elton John

There’s something about a dog-surviving-euthanasia story — and we’ve presented a few tales of such dogs, and cats, on these pages —  that grabs our hearts and won’t let go.

Maybe its because those dogs have beaten such overwhelming odds, or because we like to see the underdog (and a dog can’t get more under than this) triumph; or because we all just love to see death get cheated.

Or maybe it’s because it serves as a haunting reminder — penetrating our veil of denial — that we humans shouldn’t be killing dogs by the millions, whether it’s in outdated gas chambers or by lethal injection.

In that vein (cruel pun intended), we present the case of a beagle mix named Daniel.

Daniel was one of four or five dogs (who can keep count) loaded into the gas chamber recently at the Animal Control Department in Florence, Alabama.

“It’s the toughest part of the job,” said Cody Berry, the loader.

Berry turned the death machine on, carbon monoxide seeped into the chamber, and the fumes worked their black magic.

But when Berry went to unload the corpses, Daniel stood up and walked out.

As is often, but not always the case, the pound decided not to re-gas Daniel, and instead took him to a veterinarian before seeking a rescue group that might take the death-defying dog under its care.

On Wednesday, Daniel arrived in New Jersey, where, until a permanent home is found, he’ll live in a foster home provided through the Rockaway-based Eleventh Hour Rescue, according to the Newark Star-Ledger.

“He’s one in a million,” said Linda Schiller, the founder of the organization.

While finding him a home is the top priority, the group also hopes to make him the next  “poster child” in the campaign to end the use of gas as a form of animal euthanasia.

The practice has been banned in some states, including New Jersey.

In Alabama, it will become illegal next year under Beckham’s law, named for another dog who survived the gas chamber.

In far too many other states and counties, it continues.

The American Humane Association, among others, has been lobbying to end the use of gas chambers, which it says cost more than lethal injection and is a crueler form of death.

Daniel arrived in New Jersey, with 11 other rescued dogs, in a single-engine plane piloted by Scott Messinger, a volunteer with the group Pilots N Paws.

As soon as the 5-year-old dog was on the ground, his tail started wagging, the Star-Ledger reported.  

He’ll be staying with Jill Pavlik, a volunteer with Eleventh Hour Rescue.

Roger Keyser, another Eleventh Hour volunteer predicted we’ll be hearing more about the 20-pound beagle mix who outsmarted death.

“This dog has got to have some destiny,” he said.