Hero dog 'Sizlah' alerts Melbourne family to house fire

A dog who scratched at a door for an hour to alert her Melbourne family about a fire has been promised a lot of treats.

Sizlah, a Hungarian vizsla, scratched at her owners' bedroom door for an hour this morning before they eventually got up to see what was wrong.

"I said to my partner I could smell smoke," owner Victoria Pateman told 3AW.

"At that minute, that's when the smoke alarm went off and we walked out to see the whole of our backyard on fire, the deck and the fence and everything."

They tried to put the fire out, but firefighters had to be called.

"While the dog has been deemed the hero, the working smoke alarm was a terrific back-up for the initial canine warning device that had been ignored," Melbourne's Metropolitan Fire Brigade said in a statement.

Ms Pateman said she had told Sizlah to go back to sleep a few times before finally getting up to check what was wrong.

The fire, started by a cigarette thrown off the back deck of the Orrong Road home in Caulfield, was extinguished before spreading to the rest of the house.

Ms Pateman said Sizlah was an intelligent dog who would get rewarded for her efforts.

"She'll be getting lots of Schmackos," Ms Pateman said.