NORTH JERSEY — Ella the dog, a poodle-St. Bernard mix, is not an emotional support animal, says her owner, Beth Fitzgerald of Hoboken.

“She needs support,” Fitzgerald joked during a recent interview. She said Ella, who’s eight years old, has stomach problems and anxiety.

But this Thanksgiving, Fitzgerald, her husband, and her four adult children are thankful that Ella saved one of their lives.

Fitzgerald said that last May, she and her husband moved into an apartment in Maxwell Place in Hoboken. Three of her adult children also live in that city.

The family grew up in Montgomery, N.J., in Somerset County, but have since moved north.

In May, the family decided to travel to Boston for a ceremony for their oldest child’s graduation from graduate school.

Fitzgerald’s son Liam, 26, decided to stay behind for a day. He slept in his mom and dad’s relatively new rental in Maxwell Place that night and watched Ella, who was going to go to a sitter the next day.

But Ella started acting unusual that day.

At the same time, Liam was having headaches and didn’t feel well.

Since moving into Maxwell Place on May 1, Beth had smelled gas each day, but decided it was a slight smell and thought it disappeared when she got close to the oven. So she had dismissed it.

But when her son called and said he didn’t feel well — and Ella was acting unusual — she put it all together and knew the gas might be causing a problem.

Beth told Liam to immediately call the gas company, PSE&G, and not just the building supervisors. She also told her son to leave the apartment.

Luckily, PSE&G came and found the source of the leak. It was the oven after all. It’s since been replaced.

Fitzgerald said she’s been beating herself up a bit over leaving her son in an apartment with a gas leak. She said part of the reason she never called was that she didn’t want a big deal with fire trucks coming and the like. But she said she wanted people to learn from the incident.

“If you smell gas, don’t do what I did,” she said. “I keep thinking, what if it had been midnight [and Liam was asleep]? What if Ella didn’t act weird? Don’t hesitate. You call PSE&G immediately.”

She noted that chemicals are added to natural gas to give it an odor, so people can detect if there’s too much.

“If anything had happened to my son or my dog, I would have never been able to forgive myself,” she said.

Brian Clark, a vice president for PSE&G Gas Operations, said, “We’re so glad Beth took action and told her son to leave the house immediately and call PSE&G. She did exactly the right thing to ensure their safety, and the neighbors’ safety. If you ever smell gas, leave the area immediately.”

IF you have an emergency, you can call PSE&G at 1-800-880-PSEG (7734) or 911. You can learn more at PSEG.com/gassafety.

Meanwhile, Patch asked Ella herself for a comment on her heroic actions in May.

Ella looked away, licked her lips, then ran and hid behind her mommy.

Companies might easily flee New York for New Jersey if they find that the new congestion pricing toll in Midtown is hurting their business and workers too much, Garden State Sen. George Helmy said Sunday.

The $9 charge for cars and up to nearly $22 for trucks is expected to have an outsized effect on commuting New Jerseyans and firms that do business in Manhattan, Helmy said on CBS New York’s “The Point with Marcia Kramer.”

The senator said the toll — which proponents claim will cut traffic and fund the perennially cash-strapped public transit Metropolitan Transportation Authority — might cause some New York businesses to move across the Hudson, where workers and customers won’t have to fork over the extra cash.

“You’ve seen over the last two years more and more New York City-based organizations, including business groups, say that this is bad for business and bad for working families in the city,” Helmy said.

“A lot of the employees who come to the city every day are New Jerseyans, mostly north New Jerseyans, or [they] live in our shore communities,” the senator said.

“And if they can get [their] businesses to move into Jersey City or Hoboken, where we’re already seeing some of that influx, I think it’s going to be good for New Jersey,” he said.

But he reiterated that congestion pricing as a whole is “bad for New Jersey, and it’s bad for the city.”

Several Garden State officials, including Gov. Phil Murphy, Rep. Josh Gottheimer and Rep. Mikie Sherrill, have called the new tolls a mistake.

“This plan is a tax on New Jersey families meant to force New Jerseyans to pay for MTA upgrades — all without getting a cent back for NJ TRANSIT,” said Sherrill, who along with Gottheimer is running to replace Murphy next year.

“Make no mistake: New Jersey will not sit back and take it quietly as New York uses our commuters as a meal ticket for the MTA,” she said.

There are already nearly a dozen lawsuits challenging the pricey plan, which recently cleared a key legislative hurdle and is set to start Jan. 5, CBS said.

Earlier this month, lawyers for the New Jersey governor urged a Newark federal judge to rule on one of the biggest lawsuits aimed at nixing congestion pricing — a plan that Hochul proposed, then paused before the election, then moved ahead on again right afterward.

“I have consistently expressed openness to a form of congestion pricing that meaningfully protects the environment and does not put unfair burdens upon hardworking New Jersey commuters.” Murphy has said about the toll. “Today’s plan woefully fails that test.”

It has been decades since Lawside was subject to a racist attack, according to Linda Shockley, president of the Lawnside Historical Society. Shockley said the last recorded incident was shortly after the borough’s incorporation in 1926. During that time, several residents of Woodcrest  burned crosses on several occasions when that white neighborhood was unsuccessful in trying to secede from Lawnside.

Shockley, who is a member of WHYY’s Community Advisory Board, spoke to the crowd about the borough’s history dating back to the colonial period when Lawnside was known as Free Haven.

“We were taught in our schools the proud history of this community, founded by people who believed in freedom,” she said. “These people followed that desire to be free. It’s a natural human desire to be free.”