A loyal dog is credited with saving the lives of a young family after raising the alarm when a blaze broke out in the kitchen in the early hours.
The family of five were sleeping upstairs as smoke began to fill the kitchen and living room at their home in Speedwell Road, Ipswich, on Monday.
Buster the golden Labrador managed to wake Brendan Taylor, 30, and Kaylie Bryant, 28, by frantically barking at around 4.30am until someone had stirred.
Mr Taylor said: “My other half went downstairs and she screamed my name so I went down after her to a living room and kitchen full of smoke.
“Kaylie was trying to put it out with a towel and it was just getting bigger.
“I took the towel off her and put myself and the towel over the flames and it went out.
“There’s just damage to the kitchen but a few minutes more and it could have been a completely different story.”
The kitchen is located directly below the room of the couple’s two-year-old son, Rowen, and his siblings – Lacey, nine, and Ruby-Mae, four – were also sleeping in the house.
After the blaze, which started on a cooker hob, was put out the couple went back to bed but Mr Taylor said he was kept awake by the thought of what could have happened.
“It’s quite scary that just five minutes could have made a difference,” added Mr Taylor, who works as a photographer. “If it wasn’t for my dog we wouldn’t have necessarily been here.”
Seven-year-old Buster was a gift for Lacey when she was little after their previous family dog had to be put down.
They also have a chocolate Labrador called Holly and a Shih Tzu named Lilly.
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