A mom woke up to her dog going crazy in the backyard, so she let her in. Almost immediately, the dog ran back to the baby’s room and began dragging the girl towards the front door. The mom went to go grab the girl before the dog hurt her — that’s when she saw what was outside.
Nana Chaichanhda doesn’t usually leave the family’s 8-month-old pit bull Sasha outside overnight, but one night she did. As she slept in her home in Stockton, California, she was awakened by a ruckus at 11 p.m. It was Sasha, banging and crying at the back door, and she wasn’t quieting down.
So, Nana got out of bed and went to investigate why Sasha was making so much noise. Figuring that the dog just wanted to come inside, Nana opened the door. “I open it and she runs in and starts barking at me like crazy, and I was like, ‘OK, this is weird. This is not like her,'” Nana recalled, speaking to FOX40 after the harrowing ordeal that unfolded.
Almost immediately after darting into the house, Sasha bolted towards a back bedroom, where Nana’s 7-month-old daughter slept. Meanwhile, with her dog still going nuts, Nana began to look around for the source of the problem. It was obvious something had startled her dog, and the 30-year-old mom wanted to make sure there wasn’t an intruder, another animal, or something even worse lurking about.
As she investigated to see what might have upset the dog, Nana opened another door of her home and her heart immediately began to race. There was an inferno rising in her complex which housed four families. With a neighboring unit on fire, Nana realized the flames were spreading toward her home, threatening her children who were sleeping inside.
Seeing the blaze quickly beginning to spread from the neighbor’s unit to her own, Nana began to panic. She needed to get her sleeping children out immediately. Running back inside, she realized Sasha was way ahead of her. Instead of heading for safety, the pit bull pup was trying to pull 7-month-old Masailah off the bed and outside by the baby’s diaper. “She had already had my baby by the diaper and was dragging her off the bed,” Nana told FOX40. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, what are you doing?'”
The family was able to exit the building and wake the neighbors. The complex was evacuated with everyone getting to safety, and emergency services were called. Firefighters fought to put out the blaze, but the home was destroyed. However, thanks to Sasha, no one was hurt. “It meant a lot. I owe her everything. If it wasn’t for her, I would have still been in bed and things could have taken a worse turn,” Nana said.
Sasha has since been hailed a hero after alerting the family to the fire and attempting to save the baby she’d developed a special bond with after the two were born just a few short days apart, according to the mom. Although Nana knew her dog and baby shared a close bond, it’s now apparent that it went deeper than even she realized. The young mother is, of course, grateful to her little pit bull pup for sounding the alarm and trying to save the baby.
“I owe Sasha my life and my children’s,” Nana said. “She saved us all. She is our hero. Without her, we probably would’ve never made it out.” There’s a reason dogs are called man’s best friend. Sasha just showed everyone why.
