Unquestionably loyal, unbelievably hard working, undeniably selfless—these are just some of the traits pulsing through the veins of every hero dog. Last summer, we paid homage to our favorite courageous canines with this gallery: How 10 Brave Dogs Earned Their Hero Stripes. Your response to these dogs was so amazing we felt compelled to bring you 10 more hero hounds. Enjoy.
Sammy
It took seven years, but Sammy the Staten Island beagle finally reciprocated his owners’ life-saving act. In September, the nine-year old paunchy pooch saved his family from a late-night apartment fire—an act of gallantry that came almost a decade after his family rescued him from a Staten Island shelter.
(Photo: Slive.com)
Daniel
To make this list, a pooch usually has to save a person or at the very least another house pet, like a cute kitten. But we do make exceptions: case in point, Daniel. In October, the 20-pound, are-you-freakin’-kiddin’-me-miracle beagle survived 17 minutes in a Kentucky gas chamber. And lived to bark about it.
(Photo: NBC New York)
Titan
If ever a story validated the phrase “punish the deed, not the breed,” it’s this one: an Atlanta pitbull won the “Neighbor of the Year” award after saving its owner’s life in July 2011. One morning, John Benton was leaving for work when Titan his pitbull began acting out of character—running in circles, barking loudly, blocking the front door, and refusing to let him leave. “He’d run up a few flights of steps and run back down just to keep me from going, to let me know something was wrong. And that’s when I followed him up the stairs to see what he was trying to tell me,” said Benton, to CBS Atlanta. Benton followed Titan to his wife, Gloria, who had suffered a brain aneurysm and fractured her skull after falling down the stairs. Doctors later told the Bensons that had it not been for Titan’s heroics, Gloria most likely would not have made it.
(Photo: CBS Atlanta)
Reagan
Inside the bag, the two kittens struggled in darkness—confused, weakened and afraid. Their littermates had been horribly mangled by the traffic on the rural Iowa highway, and it seemed the next car barreling down the road would seal their fate as well. But when fate did intervene, it came not in the form of a speeding car, but as a courageous dog named Reagan. The floppy-eared pooch snatched a bag of cat food out of the road and dragged it all the way home. The Huffington Post reports that Reagan whined until her owner opened the bag. There she found the two kittens, crying and trying to free themselves from the web of gore.
(Photo: YouTube)
Buddy
Long before dawn came to Dover, Florida, the McIntosh’s pet rooster began to crow. The brave bantam had been settling down for sleep in his usual spot on the back porch, near the freezer. The freezer’s motor created a warm spot for the bird to curl up in and sleep. Unfortunately, the porch also housed a faulty fan that ignited a blaze that soon consumed the house. As Dogster reports, when Buddy, the family’s poodle, began barking frantically, the racket roused the six members of the McIntosh family, who began helping themselves from the house, now engulfed in flames. Human hero Parker McIntosh managed to pull out his grandfather’s queen-sized hospital bed. The family escaped seconds before the ceiling collapsed.
(Photo: FoxNews 13)
Ollie
It was a cozy night in the home of the Hyde family of Canton, Georgia. They were making holiday preparations, decorating the tree, and gathering in front of the fireplace. But their six-month old Boxer puppy, Ollie, knew something wasn’t right. And he wanted his family to know. “He just started nudging and rubbing our legs like he wanted to go back outside,” Sheree Hyde told CBS Atlanta. The Hydes assumed that Ollie had heard a strange noise outside, so they followed him into the front yard. Jason Hyde said that the intuitive pup “had his head up and his back was arched and was unwilling to come back inside.” Suddenly Jason Hyde realized that the gas for the fireplace logs was still on, but when he checked the fireplace, the flame was out. The courageous pooch, however, knew the family home was filling up with deadly gas.
(Photo: Dog and Cat World)
Major
There was no mine too elusive or too deadly for the expert nose of British-born Major Kipper-Ridge, a friendly, devoted Black Labrador who was put down in January after serving 15 years in Lebanon and Somalia. Speaking to The Telegraph, Major’s friend and owner, John Dingley, a senior technical for the United Nations Mine Service, remembered Major as “extremely friendly and loyal,” and described Major’s working life as “nothing short of extraordinary.”
(Photo: John Dingley / Facebook)
The Great Great Dane
This unnamed 110-pound Great Dane threw himself on top of his owner as her boyfriend beat her mercilessly with both sides of a hammer. The dog’s act of valor caused him to suffer a broken hip, rib and other bones—before the man threw both the woman and the dog out a second story window. The female victim, who asked that both her name and the name of her dog be withheld from reporters, refused to leave “her angel” behind when she was admitted into the Rose Brooks Center women’s shelter in Kansas City, Missouri.
(Photo: KCTV-5)
Sadie
Ramadi is one lucky dog. The seven-pound shih-poo (a shih-tzu and miniature poodle cross) was nearly kidnapped by a great horned owl over the holidays—until her housemate Sadie stepped in. The black and gold Boxer successfully alerted her owner’s to the owl attack, and even attempted to remove the birds talons from Ramadi herself.
(Photo: Michael Smart / Sun-Times Media)
River
In mid-January, this red cattle mutt saved the lives of two Queensland children from a venomous eastern brown snake, reports the Huffington Post. One Saturday morning, the children were running to a swing set in their front yard when the snake jumped into their path. River’s counterattack saved the kids, but he did have to undergo more than $2,000 worth of anti-venom treatment at a local veterinarian.
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