When Detroit Police got a call about a “vicious dog” in a Detroit neighborhood the day after Christmas, officers H. Kourani and G. Rogers responded.
Rogers is something of a dog fanatic. She’s a dog lover, but she’s also volunteered at rescues and spent a lot of time around the animals.
“I don’t know if it’s a blessing, but my precinct calls me the dog whisperer because I’ve always had a passion for dogs,” she said, according to Fox News.
So when they spotted a skinny dog slinking around an abandoned house, she was quickly able to tell there was more at stake than met the eye.
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The dog was very skinny, but friendly. What Rogers noticed right away, though, was that she had milk — which meant there had to be puppies somewhere.
“Their stomachs and their mammary glands get very swollen and enlarged because they’re filled with their milk for their puppies,” Rogers said. “So it was something I immediately recognized.”
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Drawing on her rescue experience, Rogers used treats to gain the dog’s trust until she was able to approach her.
“I generally always keep bags of dog treats in my car and our police car, so I kind of just worked my way up on the porch, getting closer and closer with the treats,” she said.
“And she was obviously very hungry. So she was taking them from me, and she finally was taking them out of my hand after about 30 minutes of me trying to get through to her. And after that, she started to trust us a little bit more.”
They figured the puppies must be inside the boarded-up house, so they went in.
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“As soon as we turned that first corner into the living room, we saw a tiny brown puppy laying on top of a beat-up mattress,” Kourani said.
There was a second puppy — but it was stuck inside the mattress, its neck caught in the coil of a mattress spring.
“I just used all my force to break it off his neck,” Rogers explained. “He did whimper a little bit once I got it off, but I think that was a sense of relief.”
The mom and puppies were taken in by the Detroit Pit Crew Dog Rescue. A veterinarian said that if the police hadn’t discovered the puppies, they probably would not have made it through the night.
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“Her body condition was very bad when we got her, so she definitely needs to put on some weight,” Theresa Sumpter, who runs the rescue, said of the malnourished mother dog, who appeared to be about a year old. “But she seemed otherwise healthy.”
The pups were estimated to be two to three weeks old. Their mother has been dubbed “Jingles.” Now all three of them will have a chance at a better life, thanks to the two officers.
“Whether it’s an animal life or human life,” Officer Kourani said, “we’re always going to do our best to try to protect and preserve it as much as possible.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.