- Trust your dog’s nose — it might smell things you don’t.
Whether they’re fetching sticks or doing a little dance for treats, all dogs are good girls and boys. Occasionally, however, our canine friends get up to much greater heroics.
But even among distinguished dogs, Kobe the Husky recently did a solid for many people. The sharp-nosed dog quite possibly saved his Philadelphia neighborhood from going up in a massive explosion.
Chanell Bell, Kobe’s owner, noticed that her dog was behaving strangely. Investigating the matter, Bell discovered that Kobe had identified a gas leak on her property.
Once professionals showed up, the scale of the issue probably made them go white in the face. It wasn’t just Bell’s house that was affected.
The gas lines going to Bell’s neighbors’ houses were leaking as well. A small spark of static could have blown the entire neighborhood to smithereens.
Thanks to Kobe’s keen sense of smell, gas service workers were able to repair the leaks before that nightmare scenario took place.
Yeah, it’s hard to be a much better boy than this.
A Spontaneous Digger
Kobe is a four-year-old husky who lives in Philadelphia’s Germantown neighborhood with Bell and her daughter. In mid-December 2023, Kobe did something strange.
He dug a hole in the yard of Bell’s semi-detached townhouse.
Now, that’s not exactly groundbreaking behavior for a dog (figuratively speaking). In Kobe’s case, though, it was certainly unusual.
“He’s definitely not a digger. He has never just randomly dug a hole,” Bell, 28, told The Washington Post.
But hey, maybe he just felt like digging once in his life. Without thinking much about it, Bell filled the hole up.
A few days later, Kobe dug another hole — in the same exact spot. Bell filled that hole up as well, wondering what had gotten to her dog.
Then, on December 21, Bell was outside with her eight-year-old daughter, setting up Christmas decorations. She also let Kobe out in the yard to participate in the family activity.
Once again, he started digging. And once again, it was in the same spot.
After he was done with his masterpiece, Kobe sat proudly by the hole, his tongue hanging out of his mouth.
“You know when a dog does something wrong, and he knows he did something wrong? He didn’t give me that look at all,” recalled Bell.
“He was giving me a look like ‘I did it, and I don’t regret it.’”
‘Shocked Beyond Words’
Due to Kobe’s repeated hole-digging, alarm bells started going off in Bell’s head. Maybe her dog wasn’t just being a weirdo for no reason?
In November 2023, a gas heater in Bell’s house had sprung a small leak. After the problem was repaired, Bell decided to buy a portable gas detector to spot any potential future issues.
Something told her that maybe she should get a reading by Kobe’s hole.
“I didn’t expect to find anything at all,” Bell admitted.
Yet, when she placed the meter next to the hole, it went nuts. There was definitely gas spewing out of Kobe’s excavation project, and a lot of it.
Bell alerted Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW) about the issue. When they arrived, she received some grim news — the leak was “really serious” and something as small as flipping a light switch could have blown her house apart.
“I was shocked beyond words,” said Bell.
A Neighborhood-Wide Issue
PGW professionals quickly determined the gas leak was due to an old pipe that had rusted through. With that, they got to work to repair the leak.
As they worked, though, they realized the problem was much bigger than they initially thought. It turned out that the gas lines leading to Bell’s neighbors’ houses were leaking as well.
Essentially, the entire neighborhood was one big fireball waiting to happen.
“We all had to get our gas turned off. It was a three-day thing,” Bell said.
Fortunately, PGW was able to fix the problems before anybody exploded. According to Bell, parts of her street are still torn up, but there should be no gas leaks left.
The incident has made Bell appreciate her pet in a whole new way.
“It wasn’t that Kobe found a new habit, it was really him discovering something and protecting us and our neighbors,” she said.
“We never would have known. Just knowing that something awful was prevented is amazing.”
While we have no confirmed reports, we believe it’s safe to assume Kobe got a few extra treats for saving the neighborhood. Such a good boy.