This year’s Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show will feature over 2,700 breeds and one pooch, hailed as a hero for saving his family, will compete among them for the top prize.
The Associated Press reported that Julia Haight’s 4-year-old shiba inu named Tomi, is one of the dog’s entering the show that has a very special backstory in which his owner credits him for saving the lives of her and her family.
Haight explained that as she and five other people in her Long Island home slept last October, a fire broke out and in order to wake her and her husband Tomi began jumping all over the bed continuously as smoke filled the air.
"He's normally catlike, very graceful. But he was violently shaking. It wasn't like him at all," Haight said.
An electrical fire had started and the smoke was going throughout the house when Tomi began doing everything he could to alert the family.
"He was telling me something was wrong. Somehow, he knew," Haight said.
Luckily Haight, her husband, her brother, his girlfriend and a family friend, all made it out of the Hicksville house alive, thanks to their very smart canine.
No matter how does Tomi in the competition, he will always be a true champion to his family.
The 2016 Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show runs from Monday Feb. 15 through Tuesday Feb. 16.