#Great Dane saved Alabama family’s life by alerting them to a fire

A Great Dane named Ralph is being hailed as a hero by an Alabama family for alerting them to a raging fire that destroyed their home.

Derek Walker, of Birmingham, said he was sleeping along with his wife and two children at about 2:30 a.m. Tuesday when he heard something disturb the family’s beloved — and typically quiet — 4-year-old pooch.

“He was in his kennel inside the house and we heard him barking,” Walker told AL.com. “He usually doesn’t make a sound at night. And it was a different kind of bark.”

Walker got up to check out what was apparently bothering Ralph and heard a noise emanating from the kitchen of the family’s rental home. He then spotted flames from outside a kitchen window, prompting him to yell for the rest of his family to get out, he said.

“I just started screaming ‘fire’ to get everybody up,” Walker said. “My wife got up and she got our daughter and got her out.”

Walker said his wife, Maria Gilbert, then went back into the split-level home to get the couple’s son, who was still asleep in a bedroom that was already filled with smoke.

“The fire was right outside his wall,” Walker said. “He wasn’t awake because he sleeps covered with his blanket.”

Gilbert got the couple’s son out of the home before Walker went back inside to rescue the family’s pets, including Ralph, and two miniature pigs.

But due to heavy smoke inside, Walker couldn’t get into a sunroom to save both pigs. He did manage to coax one of them to safety, but a second pig, Pearl, died in the blaze, AL.com reports.

Walker then freed Ralph, whom he credited with saving the family’s lives, especially since smoke alarms inside the home didn’t activate until it was nearly too late.

“There was so much smoke I don’t know if we would have made it out,” Walker said.

The blaze started on a grill and spread to the home, where responding firefighters were met with heavy fire in the rear of the residence, North Shelby Fire Department Battalion Chief Robert Lawson told the website.

The rental home appears to be destroyed, as was most of the family’s belongings inside, but Walker is holding onto the fact that the family’s cherished dog likely saved the day.

“Without Ralph, I don’t think we would have made it,” Walker told AL.com. “I don’t think my son would have made it.”

Attempts to reach Walker Wednesday were unsuccessful.