Heroic Dog Nabs Award for Thwarting Home Intruder

PETA Celebrates Edgar the Dog for Alerting Guardians to Alleged Kidnapper

For Immediate Release:
May 8, 2019

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

A Heroic Dog Award is on its way from PETA to the Lambert family for their adopted dog, Edgar, who alerted his guardians to an intruder in their home in the early morning hours of April 28.

Around 3:45 a.m., Thom Lambert, his wife, and their three children were asleep when they were jolted awake by Edgar, who was agitated and barking loudly. Lambert quickly realized that someone was in the house. “Edgar is normally a very sweet dog. He never gets angry,” Thom says of the dog he and his family adopted from an animal shelter a year ago. “I knew something was wrong because he seemed very angry.” According to police, the intruder—who was reportedly arrested on April 29 for kidnapping a 4-year-old girl, who managed to escape—admitted to entering the Lambert’s home intending to take one of the children, but he fled when he heard Edgar’s growls.

“When this dog sensed that his family was in danger, he immediately sounded the alarm and defended them,” says PETA Vice President Colleen O’Brien. “The Lamberts saved Edgar, and he saved them back—and PETA encourages anyone who’s inspired by this story to consider providing a dog or cat who’s waiting at a local animal shelter with a lifelong home.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. The group notes that adopting an animal saves a life: More than 6 million dogs and cats enter U.S. animal shelters every year, and half of them have to be euthanized because there simply aren’t enough homes for them all.

PETA is sending the Lambert family a framed certificate and a letter of congratulations along with a “doggie bag” of toys and vegan treats for Edgar to enjoy.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.