Buddy the German shepherd
Buddy the German shepherd was hailed Friday as a hero for guiding
Alaska State Troopers through winding back roads to a fire at his
owners’ workshop.
“Buddy is an untrained dog who for some reason recognized the
severity of the situation and acted valiantly in getting help for his
family,” Col. Audie Holloway, head of the troopers, said Friday at a
ceremony for the 5-year-old dog, who stood quietly before an adoring
crowd.
Buddy, whose good deed was caught on a patrol car’s dashcam video,
received a stainless steel dog bowl engraved with words of appreciation
from troopers for his “diligence and assistance.” Buddy also received a
big rawhide bone, and his human family got a framed letter documenting
his efforts.
Buddy appears at a news conference in Anchorage, Alaska. AP |
“He’s my hero,” owner Ben Heinrichs said, his voice breaking. “If it
wasn’t for him, we would have lost our house.”
The dashcam video shows Buddy meeting the trooper’s vehicle, then
dashing to their property about 55 miles north of Anchorage on April 4.
Heinrichs said he was working on parts for his truck when a spark hit
some gasoline and ignited, lighting his clothes blaze. The 23-year-old
man ran outside to stomp out the flames by rolling in the snow, closing
the door to keep the blaze from spreading.
Heinrichs then realized Buddy was still inside the burning building
and let the dog out. Heinrichs suffered minor burns on his face and
second-degree burns on his left hand, which was still heavily bandaged
Friday.
Buddy was not injured.”I just took off running,” Heinrichs said. “I
said we need to get help, and he just took off.”
Buddy ran into the nearby woods and onto Caswell Loop Road, where the
dog encountered the trooper, Terrence Shanigan, whose global positioning
device had failed while responding to a call about the fire. He was
working with dispatchers to find the property in an area with about 75
miles of back roads.
Shanigan was about to make a wrong turn when he saw a shadow up the
road. His vehicle lights caught Buddy at an intersection, and the dog
eyed the trooper and began running down a side road.
He wasn’t running from me, but was leading me,” he said. “I just felt
like I was being led, it’s just one of those things that we’re thinking
on the same page for that brief moment.”
The video shows Buddy occasionally looking back at the patrol car as
he raced ahead, galloping around three turns before arriving in front of
the blaze, which was very close to the Heinrichs’ home.
From there, the trooper guided firefighters to the scene. The
workshop was destroyed and a shed was heavily damaged, but only some
window trim on the house was scorched.
The Heinrich family said they knew Buddy was smart ever since they
got him six weeks after he was born to a canine-officer mother and that
he was brave, twice chasing bears away while Ben Heinrichs was fishing.
But saving their home beat them all. “Downright amazing, I would say,”
said Tom Heinrichs, Ben’s father.
AP |