A Vancouver canine went on an unscheduled trip to the Burnaby RCMP detachment last month before being reunited with his owner.
On May 24, a local Mountie was parked in his cruiser doing paperwork at Frances Street and Fell Avenue at about 6:30 a.m. when two men came up to him with a small dog, according to RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Mike Kalanj.
He said the men told the officer they’d found the pooch in the alley behind the Hi Five Chicken restaurant at about 2:30 a.m. and taken him home.
“Because it didn’t have a collar and was soaking wet, they thought it was homeless,” Kalanj said.
Upon closer inspection, however, the pair determined the robustly-built canine was too healthy looking to be homeless and went out again later in the morning to search for his owner.
That’s when they came upon the Mountie.
The officer offered to take the stray, and soon whisked the doggo to the Burnaby RCMP detachment by Deer Lake.
The Mountie called the SPCA, according to Kalanj, but their office was closed and the voicemail message told callers to contact Burnaby RCMP.
Undeterred, the officer made up some "found" posters and took the dog back to North Burnaby to put them up.
That’s when he bumped into the pooch’s owner himself.
It turned out the Vancouver man had left the dog, named King, in the care of his parents, who live off the alley behind Hi Five Chicken.
“They had let it out to do its business and it snuck out of the yard and got to the chicken place,” Kalanj said.
He said the owner was "over the moon happy" to get his wayward pup back.
Follow Cornelia Naylor on Twitter @CorNaylor
Email cnaylor@burnabynow.com
