In Arlington, Washington state, a hero dog changed his tune and alerted her owners to a fire consuming their neighbor’s house.
It was 3:00 a.m. and a fire was quietly burning the workshop of a nearby North County home. Nearby, Douglas O’Connor II was sleeping soundly in a house across the road, when he was awakened by the sound of his dog, Lucy.
“Normally, I just yell at her to go to sleep, you know?” said O’Connor, remembering a hundred instances of waking up to his dog barking.
But he said this was a type of bark that he’d never heard before from Lucy.
“Loud, screaming-type bark. It was totally different than her just barking at a usual, usual bark. It was totally—woke us both up. Something’s wrong. Wow. She was trying to tell us something.’”
O’Connor’s wife went to investigate the Australian Shepherd-Labrador mix’s alarm and saw the fire out of the window. They called 911 and firefighters arrived to contain and eventually kill off the blaze before it spread from the detached workshop to the home where the owner was still asleep by the time the engine arrived.
“Firefighters said another 10 minutes that could have reached the house. So that was a little scary,” said O’Connor.
The firefighters got to meet the furry early warning system, who became a hit among them and the police.
KING 5 News reported that Lucy’s barking was so strong it woke up other neighbors as well, who also alerted fire and rescue along with O’Connor.
WATCH the story below from KING 5 News… https://www.king5.com/embeds/video/responsive/281-fc248859-5ffc-4f88-a5ca-7a8b0abd675b/iframe
