At night a resident of Iowa, USA, woke up to the strange behavior of his dog. Roxy was barking and jumping on his bed, which was very untypical of him. The man immediately realized the animal was clearly trying to communicate something – and he heard the faint sound of a gas alarm.

“She just was jumping off my bed, jumping back up on the bed,”he told WHO13, the NBC affiliate in Des Moines. “When I started to come to, I was hearing an alarm, and it wasn’t the smoke alarm.”

After the owner jumped up and ran to check the alarm, the dog began scratching at his son’s door to wake him up, too. The homeowner, Brad Harbert, thought it was a smoke alarm, but it turns out it was the sound of a carbon monoxide detector – there was active carbon monoxide in the house.

“I could tell something was wrong that night that she woke me up and just her actions, she was kind of shivering and just really concerned that we would get outside,” he added.

The man immediately took his son, father, and dog outside, and called emergency responders. Firefighters did not immediately identify the source of the problem – it turned out it was all about the gas fireplace, which stands in the hallway of the family. But most importantly, everyone was safe and avoided the unfortunate consequences – thanks to a heroic dog.

“I’m very, very happy to have a dog and very happy to have her,”he said.