Animal Heroes Facts

Scarlett was a stray cat living in an abandoned Brooklyn garage when it caught fire in March 1996. She ran into the flames five times to carry each of her five kittens to safety, one by one. Her eyes were blistered shut by the end. Unable to see, she touched each kitten with her nose to count them before she collapsed. She survived, was adopted, and the clinic received over 7,000 letters from people wanting to give her a home.

Bamse was a St Bernard in the Royal Norwegian Navy during World War II. He wore a steel helmet at the gun tower in battle and once pushed an attacker into the sea to save an officer. The crew gave him his own bus pass, and he rode Scotland's buses alone to round up sailors from the pubs before curfew. Bamse died in 1944. In 2006, he won the PDSA Gold Medal, the only WWII animal so honored.