Spaz the dog saves woman from fire

Lillian Miller thought her little dog Spaz just needed to make a middle-of-the-night trip outside to relieve himself.

It turns out that the Chihuahua mixed-breed dog was trying to warn her about a fire.

Miller, 58, who had taken out her hearing aids, was asleep at about 3 a.m. on Saturday when she heard the faint strains of Spaz's barking.

She took him outside, but when she returned to her mobile home on Timber Village Road in Groveland, she saw flames coming from her living-room window.

"He must have heard the fire alarm, but she couldn't hear it because she didn't have her hearing aids in," said her mother, Eudora Miller. The fire spread, and the two were lucky to get out, Eudora Miller said.

Eudora Miller isn't sure how old Spaz is — he's getting a little grey around the whiskers but is still "as cute as can be," she said. But now he will have a special place in the Miller family's heart. "As far as I'm concerned, he saved her life," Eudora Miller said.