St. Bernard becomes family's hero after quick detection

OKLAHOMA CITY —A family is crediting their dog with saving their lives.

Doree the Saint Bernard might look like she's laid back, but when it comes to her family, the 160-pound dog is anything but.

"Probably about 2 o'clock in the morning Doree started whining, or had been whining, for a little while," owner Jack Damrill said. "Kind of pacing around the bed."

She refused to let her owners go back to sleep, and no matter what Damrill did, she wouldn't calm down.

"She continued to whine a little bit. The cats were meowing at the same time," he said. "Looking back on it, I remember the cats meowing very loud."

That's when he noticed the smell of gas. He went to investigate and eventually found the burner on the stove had been left on low, filling their home with natural gas. Damrill called 911 and later took pictures of the firefighters airing out his home.

"The firefighters were talking and they said, 'Well, the worst-case scenario is your house could have been ended up in match boxes across the street. Which means, it would have blown up," Damrill said.

The family believes the pets saved their lives and most of the credit goes to Doree.

"I think we're going to buy a big old steak for her because she likes food and I think she deserved a steak tonight, no doubt about it," Damrill laughed. "We're very faithful people. We believe in Christ and we believe He does a lot in our life and we believe He acted to save our life last night by allowing this dog to use its sense of smell to alert us to what could have been a tragedy in this house blowing up."

Check out the video below for another story on a heroic dog: