Everyone knows that a dog can be somebody's best friend. But during last month's blizzard, one Cambridge canine became a lifesaver.

When Randy Foley opened the door of his Chatham St. home on the evening of Jan. 7, Kayla, his 18-month-old Great Dane, darted toward the fence, began howling and tried to dig a tunnel into his neighbor's backyard.

Foley said all he could see was a four-foot high snow drift slumped against the neighboring house. But Foley, wondering why his normally reserved pet would be so excited, opened the gate between the two homes.

"I looked over the fence and just saw a huge snow drift some four feet high...so I opened the gate and she ran into the [neighbor's] backyard and started digging away into the snow bank," Foley said.

It was then that Foley noticed the auburn hair of his neighbor, Gail Coleman, 43, who was unconscious and buried beneath the blanket of snow that had been falling all day in Boston's worst snowstorm since 1978.

"I thought, 'My God, there's a person in there,'" Foley said. "I never would have noticed her otherwise."

Coleman, while attempting to replace an outdoor light bulb on her back porch, had slipped and fallen head-first into the snow drift, where she remained for several hours before losing consciousness, according to Foley.

"[She] had given up yelling, and when we got her out, her face was glazed over with a sheet of ice," Foley said. "I had to break the ice off her mouth and nostrils because she was struggling so much."

While Foley dashed back into his home to grab some blankets and dial 911, Kayla remained with Coleman, lying underneath her to "keep her head out of the snow bank," according to Foley.

Coleman was rushed to Mass. General Hospital, where she spent several days in intensive care, Foley said. She suffered frostbite, a punctured lung and several broken ribs.

Hospital officials later told Foley that Coleman was within moments of death when she was rescued.

Coleman is presently in stable condition and is recuperating at the home of relatives in Billerica, Mass. She could not be reached for comment.

Ellie Berger, a Hanover, Mass. breeder, from whom Foley purchased Kayla, said she suspects the dog heard Coleman's faint cries of help in the moments after her fall.

"Those dogs are so well trained," she said.

The Cambridge City Council has shown its appreciation of the canine heroine by adopting a resolution that commends Kayla and urges Foley to "give Kayla many 'milk bones'" for her efforts.

Although he discovered last Wednesday that he has been laid off from a chemical engineering position at Polaroid, Foley said he plans to continue providing the Great Dane with "a hero's diet."

"We've just got to figure out where the next bag of dog food is coming from," he said.

Meanwhile, Kayla has resumed her normal routine of sleeping, eating and watching television. But the dog has taken on a "proud and noble" attitude over the past month, according to Foley.

"It's funny," he said. "It's almost like she knew she did something good.