2 Dogs Alert Owner To Fire In Garage

While 53% of homeowners agree that now is a great time to renovate, a New Hampshire woman will probably have to set aside renovations, and look into repairs instead, due to a garage fire that was brought to her attention by her two dogs.

According to a recent report from WMUR Derry, Debbi Cox heard her dogs, Bailey and Bandit, barking in the other room. It was around 3 p.m., and Cox was working from home when her dogs began to act very strangely.

“Instead of out the windows, they were looking in this direction,” she said, “and their tails weren’t wagging, and the one dog, Bandit, wouldn’t leave my side.”

The cause for their alarm was a fire that was starting in the garage. “I could see the smoke and I could smell the smoke, and when I looked over the railing into the garage, there’s a glass window there, and all I could see was flames,” Debbi remembered.

She grabbed the dogs and her purse, and fled the scene while she called the police. When the firefighters came to control the situation, Cox said she realized how many flammable objects she had in her garage.

“We have some paint in the cabinets over there and driveway sealer, things of that nature,” she said. “We have some wood pellets getting ready for the winter. The car was sitting right here, so we have tires and gas tanks that could have exploded.”

Cox said that the dogs brought the fire to her attention long before her smoke detectors went off, and that she’s grateful to them for saving her home. She also thanked the firefighters for their prompt response to the situation.

Cox would have been in very different straits, had she not decided to give the pups a break from their crates for the night.

“Typically, they sleep in their dog crates, but we didn’t put them in their crates, so they could sleep with people last night.”