Pit Bull Rescues Her Owners from Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

A three-year-old pit bull rescued her owners from deadly carbon monoxide poisoning after barking to let them know something was amiss.

Her owner, Ronene Ando, said that Ruby, a certified therapy dog through the Buffalo, New York, SPCA, is usually quiet but did not stop barking Thursday evening—giving her the indication that something was not right.

“We live on a remote, dead-end street,” Ando told Fox News. “It’s not like we have traffic. The neighbor’s dogs weren’t out. If she wants to go out she rings a bell; she doesn’t bark.”

At first, Ando tried to persuade Ruby to go back upstairs and lie down, but her dog continued to bark and led Ando to the garage door in her home.

“I opened the garage door and could smell something,” Ando described. “It smelled like propane.”

She discovered a propane heater leaking gas in the corner of the garage.

Ando said if she waited a little longer, she and her boyfriend could have died from carbon monoxide poisoning.

“There is no doubt in my mind this girl — after barking for hours in the middle of the night — may have saved our lives,” Ando said.

Ando told WIVB that the rescue was even more remarkable because Ruby, who is a trained therapy dog, was not trained as a rescue dog.

“Dogs are typically intuitive. I believe that breed is even more so with all the research I’ve done, and I think that was it hands down,” she said.

Some dogs have an innate ability to sniff out carbon monoxide.

In 2014, a German shepherd rescue dog saved his 80-year-old owner in California from carbon monoxide poisoning after sniffing out a leak inside the home.