Osoyoos woman whose home burned down learns her dog died too

An Osoyoos woman is devastated following a series of misfortunes that culminated with the discovery of her dog’s remains in a house fire yesterday.

Osoyoos firefighters were called to Barbara Waighorn’s 92nd Avenue address for a house fire on Saturday, May 8.

Waighorn was barely able to escape the blaze, friend Ruth Glover says.

She has taken Waighorn in since the fire and has been assisting her in posting social media messages in an attempt to find Waighorn’s dog, which, it was hoped, had escaped the fire and run off.

Glover says the German shepherd-Collie cross, named Ginger, was a very loving, 10-year-old companion of Waighorn’s, and was integral in her escaping the fire.

“Barb recently lost her partner at the beginning of April. Ginger has always been her companion, but now, even more so,” Glover says.

Ginger was sleeping with Waighorn the night of the fire. It was close to midnight when the dog began barking.

When she woke she thought at first Ginger had to go the bathroom, but as she got up she realized the house was on fire. She managed to make it out of the house with the dog, but Ginger suddenly returned to the bedroom, where Waighorn's 21-year-old cat, ‘Pepper' was also sleeping. Pepper also died in the fire, but she knew that from the beginning.

Waighorn tried to go back into the fire, but the smoke was too bad.

“It's been very traumatic for Barb. She has been waiting eight or nine days to find out what happened to Ginger, hoping he managed to escape and had run away. We received word of sightings, but none of them turned out to be Ginger. Then we found out (Monday) Ginger’s body had been found in the fire,” Glover says.

Glover posted the news to her social media website yesterday.

“It was confirmed today that the missing dog “Ginger” perished in the house fire on Saturday, May 8 after saving Barbara and going back to retrieve “Pepper” the cat. Ginger is a hero!” she wrote.

“It’s a very sad story. From the trauma of losing a partner of 12 years, then she had the loss of her home. Basically, she got out with the nightgown she was wearing and that’s about it. Now she’s lost her dog, which was her companion. It’s very sad,” Glover says.

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