1992 Arizona Dog Heroes of the Year

"Baskerville" & "Renegade"

It was a hot August night, when Baskerville, then 8 years old, while sleeping in the bedroom of Jim and Evaline Dow's granddaughter Manon, began to scratch frantically at the bedroom door.  Manon kept telling him to go back to sleep, that she was too sleepy to let him out.  But he kept insisting, and then Renegade, also in the room, began to get most demanding as well.   So, Manon got up, but when she opened the door she found the hallway filled with smoke. Rushing across the hall to her grandparents' room, she awakened them and they began to push the two old dogs and Renegade's brother, Puff, who had been sleeping with Evaline and Jim out the window of Manon's room which faced the front yard.  Evaline and Jim went back into the house, trying to get the dog's crated in the living room also out.  

When the fire department arrived, they administered oxygen to Evaline, but she insisted they get the rest of the dogs out and give them oxygen as well.  Unfortunately, it was too late for one of her favorite stud dogs, J.B.  The 8 year-old, well on his way to gaining his ROM, had already succumbed to smoke inhalation.

But thanks to the quick actions of Manon and the initial alerting of the situation by Baskerville and Renegade, the family and all the other dogs were saved.  This heroic action earned both dogs Arizona's first-time-ever Tied Dog of the Year Award.