A Spring, Texas family is safe and sound today because of their chocolate Labrador Retriever’s quick actions.
Early Wednesday morning, loyal Lab Timber awoke with a start. Always alert, Timber knew that something was amiss in her home. While the rest of the Nagy family slept, a fire had started in the home’s attic, and Timber was the only one who had yet recognized the impending danger. She sprung into action, pushing her way into her owner’s bedroom.
“She took her nose and was just nudging me,” owner Sloan Nagy tells KHOU.com, something that the lovable Lab does on many nights. But this time, Timber’s prodding seemed different, more urgent.
“Normally if I say, ‘Timber, stop,’ she’ll just leave,” Nagy says. But Wednesday, Timber was persistent. She continued to nudge Nagy with her nose, trying to warn her of the unfolding emergency.
“She wasn’t stopping,” Nagy says of Timber. “She was waking me up.”
Taking the hint from Timber, Nagy crawled out of bed. Right away Nagy noticed that something was very wrong.
“This house was filled with smoke,” Nagy remembers. “You couldn’t even see. I was in a panic.”
Grabbing Timber and her 3-year-old daughter, Nagy fled her burning home. The Spring Valley Fire Department, who responded to the emergency that morning, told Nagy only a few short moments more in the house could have had deadly consequences.
“The heater was going to fall directly in the middle of the hallway, and we would’ve all been trapped in our rooms,” says Nagy.
Firefighters worked quickly to smother the flames, and fortunately they were successful. Sloan Nagy’s home sustained only minimal damage that morning, but most importantly, the young mother and her family are safe.
Nagy knows that she might have lost everything in that fire if it weren’t for Timber, the once-stray dog that she’d rescued in the aftermath of Hurricane Rita in 2005.
“We saved her life, and she saved our life,” an emotional Nagy says of her canine companion.
Timber’s brave actions Wednesday morning could be her final legacy. The courageous pooch is currently battling aggressive cancer, and has been receiving chemotherapy and radiation since May 2012. Nagy has been taking Timber to Texas A&M University for her treatments and has run up a veterinary bill of almost $15,000.
But the Nagy family wouldn’t have it any other way, as long as it means more time with Timber. Timber has since been given a grim prognosis and may only have months to live.
“I just loved her, and I don’t want to lose her,” a crying Nagy told KHOU.com. “I couldn’t have asked for a better dog.”
Sources: KHOU.com
