news-record.com

GREENSBORO -- Small, yippy dogs everywhere rejoice: Unto you a hero has been chosen.

ChiChi, an elderly Greensboro Chihuahua mix, will appear today on national television to claim his 15 minutes of fame for winning the Reader’s Digest “Hero Pet of the Year” contest.

Voters on the Reader’s Digest Web site chose ChiChi over four other heroic pets. He’ll be featured on the “Today” show this morning. The program begins at 7 a.m. on NBC (WXII, Channel 12).

At dusk on Oct. 20, owners Mary and Rick Lane were relaxing with ChiChi on the shore at the Outer Banks when the dog awoke suddenly. He jumped off the chair to which he was leashed, and began running in circles, making strange yipping sounds.

The Lanes looked around and saw two elderly women caught in the surf about 50 feet away. One woman had fallen and was on her back, lying in the surf and unable to turn over. Her friend was struggling to hold the woman’s head out of the water.

If the women had yelled for help, the Lanes didn’t hear their voices over the crashing surf. But ChiChi might have.

“He realized that we could help them,” Mary Lane said.

The woman who had been lying in the surf thanked them for saving her life.

“We said 'No, it wasn’t us — it was the dog,’” Mary Lane recalled.