By John C. Ensslin
Rocky Mountain News
LONE TREE, Colo. — Shizzle the Shih Tzu seemed more interested in the fire chief’s pant legs Monday than in the commendation the South Metro Fire Rescue Authority presented to his best friend, Kevin Ruby.
Fire officials, however, say there’s no doubt the 4-year-old dog’s barking helped save a neighbor’s house and possibly the people inside.
Shizzle, who name derives from the hip-hop lyrics of Snoop Dogg’s Fo Shizzle, or “For Sure,” was definitely the hero in the early morning hours of Jan. 26 in the Acres Green neighborhood subdivision.
Ruby, 16, couldn’t understand why the normally quiet dog’s barking woke him up at 3 a.m. for no apparent reason.
“I was mad,” Ruby recalled. “I said ‘Shizzle be quiet!’ ” But the dog wouldn’t shut up.
Finally, Ruby opened the front door of the house, just to prove to his pet that there was no one outside.
“And then I saw the house diagonal from us was glowing,” he said, “so I went outside in the middle of the street in the snow in my bare feet.”
At that point, the dog quieted down and Ruby sprang into action, running back inside his family’s home to dial 911. A few minutes later, seven police cars, five fire trucks and three ambulances pulled up, Ruby said.
By then, flames had crept up the side of a garage and were burning their way inside. Had it not been for the dog, Ruby said he probably would have slept through the blaze, which by then was crackling like the sound of hard rain on concrete.
And had it not been for Ruby’s call, firefighters might have been doing a rescue of the homes’ sleeping owners, who awoke to the sounds of sirens.
“Give it another 5, 10 minutes, and it would have gone through that garage,” Battalion Chief Doug Bloomquist said. “It was roaring good.”
Instead, there were no injuries and the fire was contained to one side of the garage.
Monday’s ceremony at the fire station was the second honor for Shizzle and his friend since the blaze.
The homeowners association also honored Ruby and gave his four-legged friend a bag of dog biscuits.