Fillmore the dog is the internet’s newest hero after waking up his family in Tustin to alert them of a fire that was raging in their garage, likely saving three lives, as well as his own.
At about 4:20 a.m. Wednesday, the Dalis family was asleep until their 3-year-old German shorthaired pointer began barking urgently from his unlocked crate in the master bedroom, according to homeowners Eleni and Tom Dalis.
“There was no quieting him,” Eleni, 62, said, noting the dog barked relentlessly for several minutes. She knew it meant danger: “At first I thought it was a coyote.”
Eleni then looked out of her bedroom window to see a “strong red glow” in the direction of the neighbor’s house, from where she initially thought the fire was coming. But when she entered her kitchen, she saw sparks shooting from the ceiling and her own garage engulfed in flames.
She rushed to wake up her 90-year-old mother, who lives in the home. Tom and Eleni then sprayed the fire with garden hoses to prevent the blaze from spreading to the home until the fire department arrived.
According to Eleni, Fillmore almost always sleeps through the night. “If he didn’t wake us up, we would have lost the house,” she said.
The family’s three cars and two electric bikes that were parked in the heavily damaged garage were “completely unrecognizable,” she said. The cause of the fire is still unknown.
During the frenzy of the fire, Fillmore had apparently run out of his unlocked crate and was later found hiding in the 90-year-old’s bedroom, shaking.
When he was brought outside, firefighters were waiting to greet the family’s hero. “They were all over him,” Eleni said. “He was definitely feeling the love.”
She describes Fillmore as an extremely smart pup, well-trained and a hunter by nature. When he was a puppy, he attended obedience classes.
An Instagram post from the Orange County Fire Authorities shows Fillmore posing proudly in front of his home with firefighters. The comments section of the post is flooded with praise for the pooch. One commenter called him “the real MVP.”
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