Adopted dogs perish in fire after alerting family to danger

John Headley's guardian angels had paws, not wings.

Headley was sleeping in his recreational vehicle early Friday morning when his canine companions jolted him out of his slumber.

Pitiful, a 4-pound Chihuahua that typically snoozed while curled up next to Headley's noggin, was yelping, while Baby Doll, a 40-pound pit bull that nuzzled up to Headley's feet every night, was barking and jumping against the RV's window. Headley looked out and saw a fire near his house.

"I saw really bad flames," Headley said. "Baby Doll was going crazy. I've never seen her act like that."

Headley immediately called his wife from his cellphone and told her to get out of the burning house.

He ran out of his RV, which was parked behind a second RV at the side of his home, near Rancho Drive and Cheyenne Boulevard.

Headley's son and his girlfriend were in the second trailer. Neither of the RVs was on fire then, Headley said.

That is when he decided to leave Baby Doll and Pitiful behind and waited for four people to make it out of the two-story home. Six more dogs also had to be collected.

One of Headley's house guests, a 62-year-old man with cancer, was still in the home after everyone else had made it out safely.

Headley headed inside and helped the man out of the home on a half-acre lot.

Headley looked toward the RVs and saw a terrifying sight. The RV next to his was in flames. Headley's son, his son's girlfriend, and their dog, a pit bull named Sativa, managed to get out safely.

Baby Doll and Pitiful were still in Headley's RV. He opened the RV's door and saw flames.

"I took one breath, I couldn't take another one," Headley said. "I just took my pups and got the hell out of there."

Baby Doll and Pitiful died from smoke inhalation, Headley said.

Headley recalled his family's tragic morning Friday afternoon outside his burned house. The smell of smoke still lingered in the air.

Headley said he and his family lost all their possessions and the two trailers. But he didn't care about that.

"I don't give an (expletive) about the house," Headley said. "I just lost my two puppy dogs."

Tim Szymanski, a spokesman for the Las Vegas Fire Department, said Headley's son, his girlfriend and their dog had to escape through a rear window. He said that much like Pitiful and Baby Doll, Sativa raised the alarm during the fire.

"Those two people, they were like 6 feet from the fire," Szymanski said. "If that dog wasn't there, they probably would have gone into a coma from breathing up deadly gasses, and they would have burned up."

Headley's son was visiting from Reno.

Szymanski said the blaze began in the son's RV. It spread to the second-story of the home. At one point, the flames were as high as 50 feet, Szymanski said. Damage was estimated at $200,000.

Szymanski said the cause was undetermined Friday afternoon.

Neighbors called firefighters to alert them to the 6:24 a.m. blaze, which was extinguished by 7:12 a.m.

Headley, 67, wore a cowboy hat and boots. He had a holstered gun on one hip and wore a knife on the other. He spoke with a thick Southern twang.

Six of Headley's dogs survived the fire. He had a story about all of them.

Prissy, short for Priscilla, is a pit bull and Labrador mix who loves to chase tennis balls. Sassy was Baby Doll's mother.

Headley dotes on his pets. Most of them had been abused or abandoned before he adopted them.

He recalled how Pitiful, although the smallest of the bunch, had no problem biting the pit bulls. And the much bigger pit bulls would back down from the feisty Chihuahua, Headley said.

Headley slept in his trailer because his wife, Brenda, is handicapped and found it painful to sleep together.

Brenda Headley said her husband is despondent over the loss of the dogs.

"He feels like he killed them because he didn't leave the trailer door open when he came out," she said.

John Headley was sure he and his family would be dead if it weren't for the two dogs. And he defiantly questioned whether they were in a better place.

Although all dogs might go to heaven, he is sure his four-legged friends miss him as much as he misses them.

"They're not in a better place," Headley said. "The best place was with me."

Contact reporter Antonio Planas at aplanas@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4638.