Pet Dog Saves Family By Alerting Them About Fire, Dies In Blaze

A pet dog saved a family by alerting them about a fire that was tearing through their home, but unfortunately died in the blaze. The incident took place in Bradenton, Florida, on Tuesday.

Speaking to Fox 13, Leroy Butler, the dog’s owner, said he woke up to the fire alarm early Tuesday. However, the alarm lasted only for a short time before it went off.

"It only lasted a short 'beep beep' and then it was already on fire. It was gone," he said.

That was when their family dog, a Jack Russell Terrier named Zippy, took charge of the situation and acted as an alarm by barking as loudly as possible.

"He was back and forth. He was from bed to bed, back and forth," Butler recalled. Despite the entire home being engulfed in flames, the canine continued running back and forth alerting all the family members.

The family managed to escape, however, the dog couldn’t rush out in time. Though Butler tried to run in to get his dog out, the blaze had grown too large by then.

"The floor in the living room was all on fire so there was nowhere for him to run out. Even if the smoke was this high. He was a short little dog. There was nowhere for him to go," Butler said.

He waited for the firefighters to put off the flames and rushed into the home, only to find the canine lying motionless.

"We adopted him as a pet, so we can only, I can only say he was a good dog. He only did what he could," he said.

"He would let me know if someone was outside. With the smoke, he still did his job. That’s just one thing and one person that I couldn’t save and one person I couldn’t get to," he added.

Meanwhile, the fire department said though the exact cause of the fire was not known, the blaze spread from the “attic space near the air conditioning unit.”