The Brousseau couple of Portland, CT, adopted Duke the dog from a shelter six years ago. This week, Duke did something lifesaving for them. He saved the life of the the couple’s baby, 9-week-old Harper.

Talk about returning the favor!

The baby had stopped breathing in the middle of the night. Duke knew something was amiss — just how, we’ll never know — and jumped into the couple’s bed and began uncontrollably shaking. He shook so hard the Brousseaus woke up.

“He’s insanely obedient so this was extremely bizarre,” said Jenna Brousseau, speaking to WFSB. “If Duke hadn’t been so scared, we would have gone to sleep.”

But they didn’t. And they knew something was wrong. Unnerved by their dog’s behavior, they went in to check on their baby, Harper. She wasn’t breathing.

“My husband called 911 and the ambulance came here and it was because of our Dukey dog, who alerted us,” Brousseau said.

Paramedics revived Harper and took her too the hospital. Today the baby is fine.

We’ll never know exactly what happened that night, but there is a touch of the miraculous about it. Consider the scenario: Duke was not sleeping with the baby. The baby was in a bassinet. It was the middle of the night. Everybody was asleep. It would be normal to presume that Duke was asleep as well. But somehow he discovered the baby was not breathing or at least having difficulty, and this made him very scared, so scared he had to rush to his pet parents’ bed to seek comfort — and alert them.

“He’s the perfect dog, he was meant — meant — to be ours,” said Brousseau.

“I tell him all the time, ‘You were born in mommy’s heart,’ just because he was so meant to be ours,” she said. “He’s heaven. He’s a good boy.”

Via WFSB