It’s all word of mouth, but I heard a dog saved my life once.

Picture this. It was a frigid night on the East Coast. The winds were whipping and felt icy, more than twenty minutes outside would have probably resulted in frostbite. Casually, as many people do here in Pennsylvania, there was a fire burning in our fireplace in an attempt to warm the downstairs of our house. Nearing eleven or twelve on that icy evening, my father put out the fire and my brother and I were carried up to our rooms and tucked in carefully.

At the time, my lab-terrier mix was downstairs, sleeping gently on her bed remotely near the fireplace. It was a rule in our household that the dog was not to come upstairs. Angel, our dog, was trained to remain downstairs. As the winds pushed down on the chimney some weird transaction occurred between the wind and the smoke. The smoke ended up getting pushed down into the chimney, filling the downstairs of our house with cloudy black smolder.

Maybe Angel had some instinct that things weren’t right, or maybe she knew that little kids would nearly choke on the air in the house. She raced up stairs and created the biggest scene you could imagine. Doors were being torn apart by her nails and she barked and carried on until someone addressed the situation. The fire had restarted itself and the downstairs of our house was filled with clouds of smoke. Apparently, you could barely open your eyes and breathing was nearly impossible, but I wouldn’t remember.

Maybe Angel did this because she was downstairs nearly suffocating. I’d like to believe dogs tend to act for others rather than themselves.

It’s easy to notice how excited dogs get over the smallest things. You can talk them in a high pitched voice and they get all jittery and excited. Almost as though dogs have no reason to ever be negative. If you are having a bad day, the sight of a dog can flip your mood completely (or maybe not if you are allergic or terrified of them.) Otherwise, they are something amazing to have in your life. Going on long drives and adventures with your dogs can be nearly as exciting as going with your friends.

Sometimes I can argue that the idea of losing my dogs could be worse than losing a person in my life. I know that sounds terrible, but you only have so long with your dog. They have so much more love to give than humans but they don't have as much time to give it. Dogs are probably as loveable as they are for that reason directly. They are only given so many years and no voice to say how they really feel, so they express their feelings through the constant love they give. They give love when you tend to have none to give at all, and from personal experience, they give you love when you feel like no one else will.

Whenever I am sick or sad, I always have a dog curling up next to me attempting to fill any void. Thinking of my childhood, there has always been some furry, four-legged creature by my side the whole time. I couldn’t imagine coming home to a completely empty house or not having a dog scratch on the door to whatever room I’m in.

A dog is something I wouldn’t want to not have in my life and I can’t imagine anyone else feeling otherwise either.

After all, they're life-savers.