When there are stories in the news about dogs that do something heroic, it warms our hearts and sometimes even makes us cry. We’re going to share some of those stories here.

The 7 year old family pet started to nudge her master who was asleep with her husband in mid-winter with their two children down the hall in their bedrooms. When the woman woke up, she didn’t feel so good and neither did her husband, so they put their dog outside. The couple was suffering from a killer headache and nausea. Their dog wasn’t usually a barker, but once put outside, the German shepherd would not stop whining and scratching at the door. The family wasn’t able to get back to sleep due to the dog’s noise, so they all got up and were feeling sick, so they went to the emergency room and were diagnosed and treated for carbon monoxide poisoning. The dog could smell the problem and was trying to alert the family and ended up saving their lives with her insistence. Good dog!

A tiny little young Chihuahua was playing in the backyard with her master’s one year old grandchild when suddenly she took off at high-speed running toward the boy. As it turns out, there was a rattlesnake getting ready to bite the toddler and the dog jumped in between them and saved the boy from being bitten. The tiny pooch ended up being struck by the snake and is fine now but has a lasting one inch scar to show as a medal for her efforts.

The three year old Labrador retriever had watched as his owner’s bull charged the man, tossing him into the air and up against a fence. That’s when the dog rushed the bull to keep it from causing further injury to the man. After scaring away the bull so that the man could crawl under the fence away from danger, the lab ran to the house trying to find help but no one was home, so he went back and assisted his master enough to help him back to his home where he could call for help.

One cold winter night in Washington State, the collie-malamute mix was with his master alongside the pier when the owner slipped on the ice and fell into the frozen water . Unable to free himself, the collie jumped into the lake and dragged his owner by the hair, pulling him to the dock for safety. Both dog and owner thankfully survived this scary frigid incident.

Last year, this dog hero story made internet news and YouTube when a dog in Chile was caught on camera dragging another dog to the side of the road after it was hit by a car and badly injured.

When an intruder broke into their home in Oklahoma, the family pet, a two year old Pit Bull, attacked the intruder and was shot three times before the intruder ran away after being spooked by the dog attack. The dog saved the family from harm and after surgery and medical treatment is now doing fine.

When a woman started choking to death and no one else was there to help, the family pet, a Golden Retriever jumped hard onto her chest, forcing the lodged fruit out of her throat, saving her life.

A mixed breed Wolf/German Shepherd saved an older couple when they got stuck in a snow storm by tunneling through the snow and helping pull them out.

Then there is the tale of a black lab ironically named Katrina who saved a drowning man before rising flood waters could drag him down during the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans.

It’s good to know that there are a number of foundations who recognize these canine heroes during annual award conferences.