YouYou can't ask for a more loyal pet than this. A beloved family dog named Polo recently shielded an eight-month-old baby from a fire in Baltimore, effectively saving her life and sacrificing his in the process.
According to a report from CBS News, Erika Poremski just got out of her car when the house erupted in flames, leaving her baby daughter Viviana and six-year-old Polo trapped inside.
"I tried to keep getting in," Poremski said in an interview with CBS News. "She was up the stairs, but the fire smoke was so heavy I couldn't get past it... I kept running back out and back in, trying to get up there. Then, the door curling started falling and I couldn't get back in."
Her attempts to get inside the house for her daughter resulted in multiple burns on her face and hands, injuries she wasn't able to realize at the time because of her panic. Still, she was unable to get to Viviana and firefighters have yet to arrive on the scene.
It was up to Polo to protect the crying baby and he did so bravely, shielding Viviana from the flames with his canine body. When firefighters made it to the baby, the dog was covering the baby, who only suffered burns on her arm and sides due to Polo's protection. These are serious injuries for a baby and a GoFundMe campaign is ongoing to assist with the medical bills.
Still, Viviana might not even have a fighting chance without the sacrifice of Polo.
"He was my first baby before Viv," Poremski said of her deceased pup. "He was like my child. He followed us everywhere."
"He was everything to me along with my daughter," she added.
Dogs have a habit of saving people's lives when it comes down to the wire. Natural disasters and accidents are fraught with stories of canines helping out in the most significant ways. A National Geographic article in 2006 even presented compelling evidence that dogs can detect cancer from simply smelling people's breath.