'Your Dog Is a Hero. She Saved Your Life Today'

It's as close as you'll get to a real-life Lassie rescue. A dog in rural Washington state is credited with saving the life of her 84-year-old owner by leading a deputy straight to him, reports KREM. Deputy Colton Wright of the Stevens County Sheriff's Office was patrolling the morning of Sept. 25 when he spotted a dog sitting by the side of the highway, per the Washington Post. The 13-year-old dog, Gita, wouldn't get in his vehicle and instead lay in the center of the road. Then "she stood up and looked at me ... and was like, 'Hey come this way."

Gita led the deputy up a long driveway hidden from the road by trees and to her home, where Keith Jacobs had fallen seven hours earlier on the outside porch. "Your dog is a hero. She saved your life today," Wright recalls telling Jacobs. "The deputy summoned an ambulance, and Jacobs is now recovering from a broken hip. "Who knows how long I could have lasted," he tells the Post. He said Gita snuggled with him after he fell—until he asked her to go get help, "thinking I was just indulging myself." Gita came through, however. "The loyalty and heroism of our furry friends never cease to amaze us," says the sheriff's office in a Facebook post.
, (More uplifting news stories.)