The owner of a home damaged in a January house fire is sending a public thank you to Saskatoon firefighters for saving so much more than just one dog when they rescued a family pet from the blaze.
Audrey Collins is thanking fire crews for saving her son’s three-year-old service dog, Lola, from the fire and the four puppies the pregnant Chinese pug birthed just weeks after the blaze.
“When I really think about it all and I think about the little puppies… I really want to thank the firemen,” Collins said.
Collins’ house, in Saskatoon’s Confederation area, sustained $45,000 in damage in the fire. She said an outlet in the basement caught fire, setting her son Sterling’s bed ablaze.
“My son ran up and he said, ‘Mom! Fire! Fire!’ ” she recalled. “He tried to put the fire out, but he didn’t know how to pull the plug on the extinguisher, so it was pretty traumatizing for him.”
She managed to slightly contain the blaze with the extinguisher, and her son, who is 22, escaped safely.
The scene was erratic, she said. Lola ran downstairs during the chaos.
“It was so chaotic. You got to remember this was like five minutes,” Audrey said.
Audrey was outside when fire crews arrived. Firefighters did not allow her to re-enter the home to search for Lola, but one member of the crew managed to save the dog.
“They are risking their lives every day. I found out what it was like to put out a fire, but they are the ones that actually did everything,” Audrey said.
Lola gave birth to the litter of four about a month later.
“That’s what mattered. We saved the family,” Audrey said.
The puppies, Mika, Abigail, Julius and Donald, have all since been adopted.
