With the exception of some clothes and a few family photos, the Popenfus family lost everything in a fire at their Belleville, Dane Co. home this weekend. What they do have: their lives and their dog.
“I rescued him, he rescued me,” says Amanda Popenfus, of her 3-year-old Lab, Mastiff and Cane Corso mix Waylan. “Sunday morning at about 4:20, this wonderful man right here woke us up."
Early Sunday morning, Waylan sensed something his owners couldn’t.
“A dog's sense of smell is exponentially greater than the human's sense of smell,” says Chanse Kaczmarski, Deputy Fire Chief with Belleville Volunteer Fire Department. “So that dog could probably smell that fire burning long before any human would have detected it."
In fact, Popenfus says Waylan was the only thing alerting her.