From ‘inescapable’ crate, foster dog saves family from fire

Beth Stillions usually finds herself rescuing dogs.

Last Friday, one of her foster dogs rescued her.

Meesha, who was saved from a hoarding situation in 2024, woke Stillions up from a deep sleep at 4:40 a.m. after breaking out of a crate that is billed as unescapable. Still fuzzy from her slumber, Stillions initially felt irritation.

“I was so irritated, I was literally telling him that he shouldn’t have gotten out of kennel and he was not going outside to play, then I realized the room was filled with smoke,” Stillions said. “He pretty much jumped on my face.”

Now, a gratitude that is almost impossible to express has replaced the irritation.

“There’s nothing I can do that will ever repay it,” Stillions said tearfully.

The house where Stillions and her 5-year-old son, Theo, lived is a total loss. They’re staying in temporary quarters before the search for a more permanent dwelling begins and decisions are made about rebuilding. Stillions owned the two-story, three-bedroom farmhouse, moving there in November 2023 and spending hours to refinish the house’s old wood. The acreage is five minutes away from Marietta, Minnesota, just a mile from the South Dakota border.

She had filled the house and property with animals, and at the time of the fire, the Stillions household included cats, dogs and some chicks and ducks. Three of the cats were being fostered; some of the dogs are her own.

Stillions was able to evacuate all the dogs, who slept in the basement and in or near her bedroom. “I went up the stairsteps to get to the doggie door window so they could get straight out and started letting everybody else out downstairs with me,” she said.

Several cats, who preferred sleeping higher in the house, have not been seen since the fire.

Meesha was among the 10 fosters. He was placed with Stillions, who has fostered animals through Sioux Falls-based Almost Home Canine Rescue for eight years, volunteered with other rescues and with best friend, Lexie McKercher, founded Mission Pawsible. The nonprofit provides temporary housing for animals whose owners are experiencing domestic violence, homelessness, mental health crises and other life-altering events.

Meesha arrived at Stillions’ home last fall. His original owners, a couple from rural Lennox, had been arrested in November 2024 after authorities investigated possible child abuse. Dozens of neglected animals were found. Media reports at the time said more than three dozen dogs were “running loose, eating garbage, fighting over scraps, drinking water out of puddles. Most were starving and some had injuries and needed care.”

Katie Day, a Realtor and director of the nonprofit Almost Home Canine Rescue, guesses that Meesha is part German shepherd. What she can’t guess is what went through Meesha’s head when the fire broke out in Stillions’ furnace room, only about 20 feet away. The fuse box also is located there.

“In my eyes, this guy is a — I don’t even know what word to use,” Day said. “I don’t want to use the word hero, but he’s a true companion. You can ask a person what were you thinking of going in a burning home to save a life? But dogs can’t tell us what’s going on with them. We can’t ask him, what were you thinking? Obviously, he knew there was a big issue, and he needed to wake up the person who had been feeding him, caring for him and making sure all his needs are met.”

Meesha slept in a sturdy metal crate known among some rescue groups as lion’s cages. They must be disassembled before they can fit through a doorway and should withstand the abuse plastic kennels sometimes undergo.

“I’ve never had a dog the entire time I’ve been in rescue, and this is year eight, break out of one,” Day said. “I didn’t think it was possible.”

Meesha apparently flung himself against the kennel door, McKercher said, likely over and over again. Stillions took a picture of what remained of the crate but later lost her cellphone in the remains of the fire. The door had been mangled, she said.

Both Stillions and Theo are heavy sleepers, McKercher said.

“I could play a drum, and they won’t wake up,” she said.

Friday morning’s sleep was so heavy that even though fire detectors and carbon monoxide alarms were going off, Stillions didn’t hear them until Meesha had awakened her. She and Theo were sharing the bed with several of her dogs. During the fire, she placed Theo in her truck for safety.

Stillions describes Meesha as “an adorable goof who is a bull in a china shop. He has no idea he is an 80-pound, large dog; he thinks he is five pounds and tiny. He’s a little reserved, but when he is ready for some loving, he just melts into you.”

When Meesha was rescued in Lennox, he was so undernourished that his rescuers could see every single bone in his body. Stillions lavished loving care on Meesha, and he soon adapted to her other fosters and dogs.

In fact, Meesha had been adopted once and had left Stillions’ care. In another twist of fate, however, he was returned to her home within days. If the adoption had gone through, Meesha wouldn’t have been at the rural Marietta home when the fire started.

“It was in mid-July, and two hours after they adopted him, he got loose and was lost in the Minnesota woods for a week,” Stillions said. “I was up there every day searching for him. We finally found him, and he came back home.”

Theo was delighted. Her son is growing up in the world of rescue, and Stillions describes him as animal crazy as she is. Theo loves to help with the rescue dogs, and he and Meesha are best buddies, who dig in the yard together.

Meesha is wonderful with other dogs, too, doesn’t mind cats and won’t even chase rabbits. “He is perfect,” Stillions said.

After Meesha returned from his brief adoption, Stillions began considering keeping him. That desire is even stronger now.

“There’s literally nothing I can do or give him that would repay him for saving Theo,” Stillions said.

But she is without a permanent home now and likely will be for months. No self-respecting rescue group, she joked, would approve her application for adoption at this point. An Almost Home foster near Colman has taken in Meesha, and she has her own dogs and the cats to consider.

“I’m selfish and don’t really want to give him up either, but I hope there’s somebody that would be a better home, and he deserves finding the very best home,” Stillions said.

People who foster animals become accustomed, as much as possible, to saying goodbye to the dogs they have seen thrive in their care, she said. It’s the price that must be paid to assist the animals. “I will break my heart a million times as long as they find their forever love.”

Day’s rescue volunteers, who feel likewise, have stepped up to help with the situation.

“We have caring people that go up and beyond and are willing to lend a hand,” Day said. “It gets me emotional. I couldn’t do it without the entire team behind me. I know we have people that care about animals, and obviously they have to care about the people themselves.”

A GoFundMe page has been set up to assist Stillions and her son during this period of temporary homelessness. She is staying in Madison, Minnesota, where Theo attends pre-K, to provide him with continuity in an unsettling time.

“It’s definitely been very shocking to him,” Stillions said, who coughs frequently because of the smoke she inhaled. Doctors told her it will take several weeks to go away.

“When we got out of the hospital on Friday, we went home to check to see where our house was at,” she said. “He goes, oh, no, the house is gone, and he’s like, can we build it? I said, no, dude, we can’t, but it will get rebuilt.”

Day has spent some time wondering how her own dogs would have reacted in such a situation. Not every dog would respond as Meesha did, she is sure.

“He had to be a pretty smart dog to know what to do,” she said.