Judi Bayly says she owes her life to the faithful companion who dialed 911 - her dog Lyric.
"I've got some kind of guardian angel sleeping on my bed with me even if it is red with a fur coat," Bayly said of her Irish setter.Bayly, who sleeps with an oxygen mask on because of a breathing disorder, said she could have died early Tuesday when the breathing machine plug fell out and the oxygen cut off.
But Lyric remembered her training. The dog heard the oxygen alarm sound and first tried to rouse her master.
Failing that, she knocked the receiver off a telephone, and bumped a speed-dial button on the phone three times to dial 911. Several buttons on the phone are programmed for the same number, so she doesn't have to be able to choose one.
"It's amazing," said Charlene Hall, a dispatcher at Nashua Fire Rescue. "The dog is trained to go over and hit that phone three times to get 911 and she barks into the receiver."
The town's 911 system automatically gives dispatchers a caller's address. Rescuers arrived to find Bayly having a major asthma attack.
"Animals, they really are your best friends," she said.