RESCUE DOG—Alan Brody explains how he and his wife, Pamela, are lucky to be alive. If the family dog, Abby, hadn’t alerted him at 3 a.m. on Aug. 30, the couple might have been in bed while their house burned around them. Abby is their hero. Behind them is a boarded window. A shedlike structure connected to the house near the window burned to the ground. Because of Abby, the fire department arrived before anyone was hurt. Maybe every dog is a hero just waiting for the right moment to shine.

That time arrived for a small white dog named Abby. Most days she pretends to be an average family pet. She loves attention, wags her tail, enjoys being picked up and gives doggie kisses generously. She enthusiastically chases a ball and brings it back. Sometimes she has “accidents” in the house, but otherwise she’s pretty much perfect, Alan Brody said.

If the little dog has caused any trouble with her puddles in the past, all is forgiven since Abby alerted her family that their house was on fire at 3 a.m. Mon., Aug. 30.

“I’d stayed up late and was going to bed when Abby started barking,” Brody said.

Normally, the dog is quiet at night because she has a plan. She waits for Allan and his wife, Pamela, to get in bed and go to sleep. Then she silently sneaks into their bed and sleeps with them. She’s a cuddly dog who loves people.

But that night Abby wouldn’t stop barking. Allan understood she was trying to tell him something, so he opened the bedroom door. Abby shot out, barking as she ran downstairs. He followed her down, thinking there must be an intruder.

“I was saying, ‘Who’s there?’ expecting to find someone,” he said.

Then Allan noticed lights flickering outside a window in the kitchen area. When he came closer he realized the outside of his house was on fire. He shouted for his wife to call 911. He grabbed a fire extinguisher and unloaded it, but the fire was too intense.

The couple grabbed Abby and ran outside. A shed-type structure on the side of their house had caught fire and was completely destroyed. But due to Abby’s warning, by the time the smoke detectors went off, the fire department was already at the home in the 700 block of Calle Contento.

Firefighters quickly put out the fire, which had worked its way into the home’s attic. Without Abby’s warning, the Brodys could have been trapped upstairs.

“The fire department did a fantastic job,” Brody said.

“The dog helped them realize they had a fire,” said Ventura County Fire Department spokesperson Capt. Ron Oatman, who was at the fire.

Because the dog was on the scene outperforming the smoke detectors, the fire was kept to a one-alarm incident with three engines, a ladder truck and support equipment. Fire investigators later said they determined the origin of the fire to be an overloaded electrical circuit leading to the shed. The shed was being used to grow a small amount of medical marijuana in compliance with California laws, said Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Capt. Ross Bonfiglio.

“The damage was kept mostly to the outside of the house. The fire had barely gotten into the attic,” Oatman said.

“Abby is a rescue dog. We didn’t rescue her. She rescued us,” Brody said.