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This is the story of a heroic pot-bellied pig named Lulu who became a
media sensation in the late 1990s. In 1997, Lulu’s human left her to be
babysat by her parents JoAnn and Jack Altsman in Pennsylvania. They got
along so well it led to her human parents becoming Lulu’s permanent
parents.
Then one day in 1998 while Jack was out fishing, JoAnn suffered a heart
attack. She called for help but no one heard. Her dog also barked but also
got no response. Then Lulu came through with her bravery and quick-
thinking. She saw JoAnn and realized she was in distress, then ran to get
help. She had to bust out of their backyard, which left her skin cut up and
bleeding. She ran out into the street and lay down in front of traffic, which
was a way to get humans’ attention. Later it was reported that some cars
just drove around the 150-pound Lulu, but one kind driver stopped to
make sure she was ok.
He could see the pig was stressed and injured, with blood showing from
her escape. The driver yelled out saying he found a pig who was hurt.
JoAnn heard him and yelled back to him. The driver called an ambulance,
who took her to have immediate open-heart surgery. Doctors said that if
15 more minutes passed she would have died.
Lulu’s incredible act spread across the country through local papers and
news interviews. She then appeared on international shows, in USA Today
and People magazine. She even made a front page story on The New York
Times. She made one notable TV appearance on the Late Show with David
Letterman, where she became friends with George Clooney (With Clooney
a famous owner of a pot-bellied pig at the time). Her hero status was made
official when she received the Tiffany gold hero’s medal from the ASPCA.
It is incredible how animals can have this
extreme perception and love for their owners, in
this interesting case of Lulu the pig, who saved
her owner's life when she saw that she was
suffering from a heart attack, Lulu got desperate
and tried to call people's attention by going out
and standing still on the track so that passersby
would realize that something was going on,
which I find amazing because it is the first time I
read a case like this. if it had been 15 minutes
more JoAnn would have died, said the doctor. As
we can see Lulu the pig is a savior.
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sufferance suffer - -

stress stress stressful -

blood bleed bloody -

bark bark - .

injury injured injured -

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EXTREME PERCEPTION AND ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE
Animals have extreme perception, but that doesn´t make them
geniuses. They can be better than humans or machines in some
ways.
Seizure alert and response dogs are good examples; seizure alert
dogs predict when a seizure before it starts, they have advanced
perceptual abilities. The seizure response dogs are trained to help
the person once the seizure has begun; they can bring the telephone
or the medicine.
New York times published an article about Connie Standley who has
2 dogs who predicted her seizures 30 minutes before. She said that
their dogs do things like pull on her clothes, bark at her, or drag on
her hand to get her to someplace safe so she won’t get hurt when
the seizure begins. It’s clear that their dogs were trained as a seizure
alert dogs before they came to her.
Another example is Clever Hans, a German horse, his owner thought
he could count but he wasn´t really counting, he had an extreme
perception that made him respond to the questions that people
asked. As can you see, anybody trained him, Hans trained himself.
All in all, these animals have extreme perception, they are intelligent
in their own way and that doesn´t make them geniuses.
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Hedging is the use of linguistic devices to express hesitation or
uncertainty as well as to demonstrate politeness and indirectness.
HEDGING AND PHRASES WORDS:
 Introductory verbs – seem, tend, look like, appear to be, think,
believe, doubt, be sure, indicate, suggest
 Certain lexical verbs – believe, assume, suggest
 Modal Adverbs – possibly, perhaps, conceivably
 That clauses – It could be the case that…, it might be suggested
that…, there is every hope that…
EXAMPLES:
1. It may be said that the commitment to some of the social and
economic concepts was less strong than it is now.
2. The lives they chose may seem overly ascetic and self-denying to
most women today.

WHY IS HEDGING IMPORTANT IN ACADEMIC WRITING?

Using hedge words and phrases in academic writing allows you to
be academically cautious, to acknowledge the degrees of
uncertainty in your statements and claims, rather than claiming
something is an absolute truth or fact.