When “The Dog Resort,” a doggy daycare in Seattle’s Lake City neighborhood, caught on fire, it could have been a devastating disaster. After all, dozens of dogs were attending daycare that day. But instead, the exceptional employees from two nearby businesses came together, not hesitating to put themselves in harm’s way so they could lend a helping hand.
Thanks to the local community, every single dog was saved from the fire.
It was the employees from PSR Mechanical, along with a few from Aceitunos Mexican Foods, a nearby Mexican restaurant, who came together to help. PSR is right across the street, and the Mexican restaurant is next door. Employees at both places spotted the smoke and heard the sirens.
“You could see the smoke pouring out of the building and the noise from the dogs, from the emergency responders, the firefighters, police, everybody that was responding. So, it was a lot of noise; it was chaos. And it was one of those situations where we didn’t know exactly what to do, but we knew we had to help,” said Greg Hagen, one of the employees from the HVAC company.
Everyone played an equally important role in the rescue. Some people raced into the burning building to remove the dogs that were in danger while the PSR employees corralled all of the canines into their fenced-in yard. Some people secured PSR’s fenced-in yard so that dogs couldn’t get out onto the street, and others made sure that every dog was well cared for.
They even helped reunite the petrified pet owners with their precious pooches, all while firefighters battled the blaze. The fire had broken out inside the facility’s dryer room around 11 a.m. As you could expect, all the pooches’ parents were worried beyond belief.
“They had taken their dog there that morning and had seen it on the news and were absolutely frantic,” said Greg.
It was a valiant group effort from the daycare employees, Seattle police, Seattle fire, Animal Control, and multiple neighboring businesses, including a veterinarian.
The entire situation was extremely emotional for everyone. Could you imagine how it must have felt to see that the doggy daycare where your precious pooch was spending the day had caught fire?
To have seen the look on all their faces when they saw that their fur babies were okay must have been such a tug on their heartstrings. After all, only an animal lover would have put themselves in harm’s way to ensure the dogs were okay.
Now, the employees are being hailed as heroes. Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell even visited both PSR and Aceitunos Mexican Foods to present them with letters of recognition.
Situations like this really help restore your faith in humanity.
