FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Food

Dog (ALLEGEDLY) Started Kitchen Fire by Trying to Snag Pizza Off the Stove

This doggo isn’t the first to be involved in pizza-related arson accusations.
Dog (ALLEGEDLY) Started Kitchen Fire by Trying to Snag Pizza Off the Stove
Photo compilation via Flickr user Matt and KXAN News / Twitter

Despite having almost 180,000 followers, most tweets from Austin’s KXAN News only get a handful of responses. On Monday, whoever runs the station’s social media account had to be overwhelmed by all of the @’s, after a tweet about a pizza-hungry dog accumulated more than 1,000 likes and almost 200 comments. Guys, that’s what happens when you refer to a GOOD SNACKING BOI as a bad dog.

Advertisement

“Bad dog!” the station wrote. “Family pet causes $1,000 in damage after trying to get pizza off the stove and accidentally turning it on.” OK, KXAN isn’t wrong (except about the “bad dog” part).

It is true that on Monday, the Austin Fire Department responded to a call that involved a fire in the kitchen of a house on Arrowwood Drive. It is true that, according to the Department’s own Twitter account that there was a grand’s worth of “minor damage to the stove and kitchen” as a result. And it’s even true that the family’s dog… contributed to the fire. The dog allegedly turned the stove on while trying to get a piece of pizza that had been left on top of the appliance.

This doggo isn’t even the first to be involved in pizza-related fire accusations. In November 2015, a chocolate Lab named Brookfield tried to get into a pizza box that had been left on the stove, nudged the burner (HE DOESN’T HAVE THUMBS, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT) and inadvertently started a fire in the kitchen of his Connecticut home. According to the New York Daily News, the fire burned for 34 seconds before his owners discovered what was up and extinguished the flaming cardboard box.

Gary LeClerc posted a video of the incident on YouTube. He said that he and his wife wanted to “use it for educational purposes,” presumably to show what happens when you don’t share pizza with the best boy, or when use your stove as an extension of the countertop. (Also the video’s title, “Dog attempts to set house on fire,” is unnecessarily accusatory. Brookfield, we encourage you to seek legal representation.)

Yes, these hungry bois were present when a fire began in these homes, but let’s all agree that they’re still good dogs.