A dog named Fillmore has become the internet’s newest hero after waking up his family in Tustin and alerting them to a garage fire, potentially saving three lives as well as his own.
According to homeowners Eleni and Tom Dallis, around 4:20 a.m. Wednesday, the Dallis family was sleeping until their 3-year-old German short-haired pointer started barking loudly from his open crate in the master bedroom.
Eleni, 62, said after seeing the dog barking continuously for several minutes, “No one was quieting him.” She knew it meant danger: “At first I thought it was a coyote.”
Eleni then looked out her bedroom window and saw a “bright red glow” in the direction of the neighbor’s house, where she initially thought the fire was coming from. But when she entered her kitchen, she saw sparks flying from the ceiling and her garage engulfed in flames.
She ran to wake up her 90-year-old mother who lived in the house. Tom and Eleni sprayed the fire with a garden hose to stop the fire from spreading into the house until the fire department arrived.
According to Alleyne, Fillmore almost always sleeps at night. “If he hadn’t woken us up, we would have lost the house,” she said.
The family’s three cars and two electric bikes parked in the heavily damaged garage were “completely unrecognizable”, he said. The cause of the fire is still unknown.
During the raging fire, Fillmore had apparently escaped from his open crate and was later found hiding, shivering, in the 90-year-old man’s bedroom.
When he was brought out, firefighters were waiting to give the family a hero’s welcome. “They were all over him,” Alleyne said. “He was definitely feeling the love.”
She describes Fillmore as an extremely intelligent puppy, well trained and a hunter by nature. When he was a puppy, he went to obedience classes.
an instagram Post Fillmore is shown proudly posing in front of his home with firefighters from the Orange County Fire Authorities. The comments section of the post is filled with praise for the dog. One commentator called him “the real MVP”.
