'Persistent' pit bull saves owners from carbon monoxide poisoning
BUFFALO, NY - Ronene Ando was startled awake around 1 in the morning by the sound of her 3-year-old pit bull's high-pitched bark. She begged Ruby to go back to sleep, but the dog was "persistent." Sitting at the bottom of the stairs, Ruby continued to whine until Ando finally rolled out of bed.
As a certified therapy dog through Paws for Love, a program run by a local SPCA in Buffalo, New York, Ruby has been trained to be calm and quiet. When Ruby continued to bark, despite Ando's commands to stop, the owner knew something wasn't right.
Ando followed the sound of Ruby's barks. The dog had broken through the gate placed at the bottom of the stairs and was sitting outside the door to Ando's garage.
Sure enough, Ando saw a propane heater in the corner of her garage leaking gas. If she had waited too much longer, Ando says she and her boyfriend could have suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning.