Rescued Dog Saves Owner From Idaho Fire [twice!]

AP ^ | Nov 24, 2007 | staff reporter

[Daffynition]

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Sometimes rescuers need to be rescued, too.

Candace Jennings was sleeping on the couch when she was nudged awake by her dog, Anna, to find her mobile home engulfed in flames early Thanksgiving Day. The blond heeler, an abused stray dog Jennings had adopted from an animal shelter, whined and howled until they ran outside.

"I had an awful headache. The place was filled with smoke," she told the Idaho Statesman for a story published Saturday.

But Jennings said she ran back into her burning home to save some items.

"I'm a janitor in town," she said. "I had everyone's keys in my backpack. I had to go back and get them."

She crawled back into her burning home in Idaho City, about 40 miles northeast of Boise, with Anna close at her side.

But Jennings said she became disoriented and was nearly overcome by smoke. She tried to get back out but crawled in the wrong direction, heading toward the pantry instead of the door.

Anna showed her the way out.

"She pushed on me; she nudged me out the door," Jennings said.

The roof collapsed as Jennings, barefoot and wearing only pajamas, ran to some trees in the 15-degree weather. Jennings suffered burns to her feet and then frostbite. Anna and two other dogs Jennings has were not injured.

"She's a hero," said Jennings, an artist who has lived in the mountain town since 1975.

Grant Hawk, owner of the trailer park, said an electrical problem might have started the fire in the mobile home, which he said is a total loss.

[Daffynition]

Good dog!

[barker]

Good dog indeed.

[Daffynition]

We’d be hard pressed to find a cat that would do this! ;-D

[barker]

My cat would be sitting there with a smug look on his face and probably matches at his feet saying “look what the dog did”.

[Caramelgal]

We’d be hard pressed to find a cat that would do this! ;-D

I know cats get a bad rap for being aloof and uncaring but some cats can show great affection and much love and great devotion to their human “underlings” and their “inferior beings”.

Remember that dogs are social creatures by nature and need to be members of a pack and cats are mostly solitary by nature. When a dog is devoted to you, it’s part of his nature to attach to the alpha in the pack, but when a cat is devoted to you, it’s by his or her choice alone and goes very much against their nature.

Oreo The Cat Is A Hero
http://www.whbf.com/Global/story.asp?S=7365108&nav=0zGo

TABBY THE HERO PREVENTS CAT-ASTROPHE
http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=163490&command=displayContent&sourceNode=163316&contentPK=18836999&folderPk=89126&pNodeId=163047

Heroic cat, dog feted at NYC luncheon after saving owners

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/11/heroic-cat-dog-.html

Winnie, an American shorthair, was recognized because she woke her masters up in the middle of the night as the family home filled with carbon monoxide.

"Winnie jumped on the bed and was clawing at me, with a kind of angry meow," Cathy Keesling of New Castle, Ind., says. "When I woke up I felt like a T-bar had hit me across the head."

Keesling's son was already unconscious, and emergency workers said the family was minutes away from death, based on the amount of gas in the house.