NEWARK, N.J. - Unnamed and unwanted, the young beagle mix was left anonymously in a drop box outside an Alabama pound. His life was supposed to end in a gas chamber.
Instead, the young stray emerged frightened but unscathed, wagging his tail. Now, he's being hailed as a miracle dog, given the name Daniel after the biblical figure who survived the lion's den. And he has a fresh start in New Jersey, where a rescue group hopes to find him a good home.
Only three animals have survived the gas chamber at the Animal Control facility in Florence, Ala., in the past 12 years. "Maybe God just had a better plan for this one," said city spokesman Phil Stevenson.
Daniel's tail never stopped wagging as he stepped off a plane at a New Jersey airport, where he was flown Wednesday by the nonprofit Eleventh Hour Rescue group. "He's absolutely fabulous," volunteer Jill Pavlik said Friday. "He walked in the house like he had always lived there."
Linda Schiller, the shelter's founder, said the facility has already received about 100 applications from people seeking to adopt Daniel. About half said they weren't interested in adopting another dog if Daniel wasn't available.
No one is sure why Daniel was the lone survivor. "It may be that his breathing was shallow because of a cold or something," Stevenson said.
He said the gas chamber is a stainless-steel box about the size of a pickup truck bed, and dogs are put into the chamber about seven or eight at a time. A computer-controlled pump slowly feeds carbon monoxide into the chamber once it's sealed.
Since carbon monoxide is heavier than air, it sinks, so a tall dog, or one that climbed to the top of a pile, would have a better chance of surviving, said Julie Morris, a senior vice president at the ASPCA. Young healthy animals have the best chance for survival.
