Saturday, April 24, 2010

Hero dog brings help to burning home

It’s not just people who have to be tough and resourceful to live in Alaska; even the pets have to be made of sterner stuff. After all, those woods are full of bears and wolves and moose.

Enter Buddy, a German shepherd who lives in Caswell Lakes, Alaska, considerably north of Anchorage, with his best friend, a 23-year-old human named Ben Heinrichs, and Ben’s parents, Lynnette and Thomas Heinrichs. Buddy is the star of a 1-minute video shot on a state trooper’s dashcam.

Trooper Terrence Shanigan’s dashcam caught it all. A German shepherd takes off running down partially snow-covered roads, but keeps looking over his shoulder to make sure the car is keeping up.



Buddy sprints along for about a minute in a black-and-white landscape, the only things visible being what is illuminated by the police car’s lights. Finally, the dog takes one last turn. As Shanigan turns with the dog, his windshield lights up with a bright yellow ball of fire that used to be the Heinrichs’ workshed.

When Shanigan got out of his car, Buddy jumped up and made sure the trooper continued to the house. Then Buddy retreated into the woods, seeing that his work as done.

Shanigan was able to guide fire trucks to the scene, in time for firefighters to save the Heinrich’s home. The workshop was a total loss.

Full story here.

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