{"id":36590,"date":"2022-12-27T21:34:47","date_gmt":"2022-12-28T04:34:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/heroic-canine-saves-neighbor-from-potential-explosion\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:32:08","slug":"heroic-canine-saves-neighbor-from-potential-explosion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/heroic-canine-saves-neighbor-from-potential-explosion\/","title":{"rendered":"Heroic canine saves neighbor from potential explosion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Dozer
Dozer the Dog alerted his owners to the smell of smoke and was able to get them over to the neighbor\u2019s house, where a shed had caught fire and was burning near a propane tank. (Courtesy of Mason Dyer)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A house fire two years ago may have inadvertently saved an Upper Pine River resident from an explosion on Dec. 14 this year, when the firewood inside a shed mysteriously ignited, setting the structure ablaze only a few feet from a propane tank.<\/p>\n

Dozer, a 7-year-old Lab mix owner Mike \u201cStretch\u201d Greer adopted from the La Plata County Humane Society as a puppy, escaped that house fire with his family back in 2020, though fire rescue crews were unable to save the structure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe lost everything,\u201d Greer said. \u201cIt was Father\u2019s Day evening, and my barbecue exploded. It caught my house on fire, and it burned to the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greer said Dozer was in the house when it began to burn, though Greer managed to get the dog outside before it was too late.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was pretty scary, and Dozer was there when that happened,\u201d he said. \u201cMy little puppy was there in the house when it caught on fire. I think there was some PTSD from that, but no one was hurt or anything. We were safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dozer,
Dozer, center, receives a special treat from the Upper Pine River Fire Protection District for helping to save the life of his neighbor from a nearby blaze. \u201cHe woke my fianc\u00e9e up and wouldn\u2019t stop until she went and looked out the window,\u201d said Dozer\u2019s owner, Mike Greer. (Courtesy of Mason Dyer)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Though Dozer was not harmed in the fire, the trauma of the event left him with a keen sensitivity and anxiety to the smell of smoke and the sight of flames.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe gets agitated around any open flames or the slightest smell of smoke,\u201d Greer said. \u201cHe gets very leery if he smells it.\u201d<\/p>\n

That agitation and trauma Dozer suffered from the house fire may have saved a life and an Upper Pine River property in the early morning of Dec. 14. At 1:33 a.m., Dozer woke Greer\u2019s fianc\u00e9e, Sydney Morrison, dragging her from bed and leading her over to the nearby window. Morrison was not sure what she was looking for at first, until she noticed the flames and smoke billowing from a nearby property.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe woke my fianc\u00e9e up and wouldn\u2019t stop until she went and looked out the window,\u201d Greer said. \u201cHe was running up and down the hallway, and she finally looked out the window and saw the flames.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morrison immediately woke Greer, and the two called 911 before heading over to their neighbor, Elizabeth Jon\u2019s house, which was a quarter of a mile away.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe jumped into the truck and hurried down to her house,\u201d Greer said. \u201cWoke her up and got her out as quickly as we could.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Greer and Morrison arrived, the couple\u2019s panic was amplified by the burning shed\u2019s proximity not only to the house, but to something that could potentially cause a disastrous explosion.<\/p>\n

\"Upper
Upper Pine River resident Elizabeth Jon\u2019s shed was already ablaze when Mike Greer and Sydney Morrison arrived at the property on Dec 14. (Courtesy of Mike Greer)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cThe shed was totally engulfed in flames, and it was burning right next to a propane tank, so we knew we had to get her up and out of there, along with whoever else was in the house,\u201c Greer said.<\/p>\n

Fire and rescue units arrived around 1:45 p.m. and quickly extinguished the flames, though the shed was not salvageable. Jon\u2019s house was spared and only the surface of the propane tank had been burned.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was cold as hell out (when rescue units arrived),\u201d said Upper Pine River Fire Protection District Fire Chief Bruce Evans. \u201cI think it was minus one on my car thermometer when I pulled up there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Besides the frigid weather, the property\u2019s location also caused a slight delay in rescue efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all the way at the end on the far reaches of our district, so it took us a little bit to get out there,\u201d Evans said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of the no man\u2019s land between us and Durango Fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evans and those who work for the Upper Pine River Fire Protection District laud the quick actions of Greer and Morrison, and especially a 7-year-old rescue dog named Dozer, positive that the canine\u2019s early warning could very well have saved Jon\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

In honor of Dozer\u2019s efforts, the department presented him with an early Christmas present: a box of Milk-Bones with a big red bow on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor Dozer\u2019s quick reaction in alerting his owners, we felt he deserved a box of biscuits for his actions,\u201d said Evans at an impromptu ceremony with Greer and Morrison in attendance.<\/p>\n

molsen@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"The
The shed fire on Upper Pine River resident Elizabeth Jon\u2019s property was burning only five feet away from a propane tank, said fire chief Bruce Evans. (Courtesy of Mike Greer)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sensitive to the smell of smoke, Dozer the Dog woke his owners to a fire burning a shed a quarter of a mile away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[350,28,1370],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-36590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-fire","tag-headlines","tag-upper-pine-river-fire-protection-district"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83394,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36590\/revisions\/83394"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36590"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=36590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}