Burning Love

Travis Oliver, 41, couldn’t get one important Instagram post out of his head…

- Nia Dalton

Sitting on my break at work, I sighed.

It was January 2018, and I’d had a long day working as a firefighter in Indiana.

Scrolling through Instagram on my phone, I stopped at a photo of a black Labrador.

Her brown eyes stared at me. I felt overcome with emotion seeing her burnt face poking out of a pet cone. I thought of my dog, Odie, sat at home.

Hi! I’m Lexi, the caption read. I survived a house fire a few days ago, and was rescued by some really awesome people at Ruff Start Rescue.

Her burns were so bad that her family wanted to put her down, but she’d been rescued by a vet.

I’m working toward finding my furever family, it said.

I’ve been a firefighter for 18 years, and I’m used to pulling dead dogs out of fires.

I’ve rescued a few, but it really does take its toll on you.

As I carried on with my shift, I couldn’t get the image of Lexi out of my head.

Arriving home, Odie welcomed me at the door wagging his tail and panting.

I wondered what it would be like if we had two.

‘Look at this!’ I said, showing my wife Deanna and daughter Skye the Instagram @lexi.gets.better.

‘She’s so cute!’ Skye said. ‘What happened to her?’ I messaged the account to find out more.