This Dog Made The Ultimate Good Boy Move Before His Fire Rescue (And The Video Is Precious)

It's every pet owner's worst nightmare: a fire sweeping through the house when no one is home except the beloved pet. That was the case for one Illinois family in September 2025. Fortunately, this particular story had a happy ending — and the family dog got a chance to demonstrate his good-boy bona fides in the process.

In a YouTube video that's been viewed more than 721,000 times, police officers are seen entering a smoke-filled house and searching for occupants. They find only Oakley, an American Staffordshire terrier, who leads them to his leash by the back door and waits patiently for the leash to be clipped onto his collar before heading outside to safety.

"Wow!!! That is one smart and gentle dog, who led the police to his leash knowing that he has to have it on before going outside," one viewer commented. "Dog: I don't care what's on fire, I don't go out without my leash," another wrote. Many viewers gave thanks to the police officers for taking the time to rescue a pet, and several commenters praised the dog's family for training him properly.

A confident, well-adjusted, and well-behaved pet is the result of a dedicated owner spending much time and energy on training their dog — perhaps learning all of the dog training terminology in the process — and employing positive reinforcement instead of aversive techniques. Positive reinforcement increases good behavior by rewarding it with something the dog enjoys, such as praise, a tasty treat, or a toy, and ignores bad behavior instead of punishing it with aversive methods, including spray bottles, choke chains, invisible fence collars, body pressure, shouting, or other loud noises.

Using treats as positive reinforcement is a great idea, as long as you don't go overboard with those treats. Clicker training might also be worth exploring as a way to reinforce desired behaviors in a dog. Training can also be important if your dog ends up in an emergency situation like Oakley's. Oakley clearly was a star pupil at his leash training. "Such a smart and well-behaved dog. Whoever trained and raised this dog did it right," one viewer of the YouTube video commented. Another attempted to channel Oakley's thoughts during the fire, writing, "In this house, we have RULES. We are not savages."