3 dogs, 2 cats saved from Fort Collins house fire

Erin Udell | The Coloradoan

Show Caption Hide Caption Unconscious pups pulled from fire are once again wagging tails Three dogs and two cats were saved from a Fort Collins house fire Sunday thanks to local agencies and a fancy hyperbaric oxygen chamber.

Three Fort Collins dogs and their two cat siblings were saved from a house fire Sunday, thanks to some local agencies and a fancy hyperbaric oxygen chamber.

Firefighters with Poudre Fire Authority pulled the unconscious dogs — Rio, Bentley and Bonnie — and injured cats from a South Taft Hill Road home after getting to the scene just before noon.

Once there, firefighters saw smoke coming from the home and noticed people trying to pull the pets through a window, according to PFA spokeswoman Madeline Noblett.

No people were injured in the fire. Its cause is under investigation, Noblett said.

After PFA and UCHealth EMS crews used pet-sized oxygen masks on the dogs, they started breathing again, according to a UCHealth news release.

The animals were taken to the Fort Collins Veterinary Emergency and Rehabilitation Hospital, including cats Thor and Simba. There, the dogs were treated in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.

The pets' owner, Debra Brown, thanked the UCHealth EMS medics and PFA crews in a video, with her dogs wagging their tails in the background.

"You can replace things, but you can't replace people," Brown said. "And animals are people, too."