Good cop.

Tonight, we spent the evening helping another Access Tucson producer and preparing some more of our flyers for distribution, so we were out around town for a few hours.  While we were out, I saw a stray dog loose in the street at a major intersection.  He wasn't paying any attention to the traffic and just managing to avoid it.  He was black and tan in color, so he really blended in with the nighttime street lit by sodium-vapor lights.  He was moving quickly and none of the traffic was stopping for him, unlike Chewy, the last dog I rescued.  He made his way to a parking lot on the corner, so I followed him there to see if he had a tag so I could call his owner.  He turned out to be a large male Rottweiler.  By then, he seemed a little tired and maybe thirsty.  A lot of people in the parking lot were concerned for him and one person even gave me some bread to give to him.  I couldn't really get near him, though, since he was pretty skittish.  Another man and I were able keep him in between us so that he wouldn't escape, but the man was probably about twenty years older than I, so I was doing most of the fast footwork.

I saw the dog sniff around and snap up a couple of food items from the ground (I didn't see what they were), and eventually he took up the bread I tossed to him.  Someone had called 911, so we waited for the police to arrive.  I ended up calling the police as well to get them to come more quickly, since it was hard to keep the dog in place.  An officer arrived shortly after my call and he turned out to be tall, lean, and strong, but I think he was still at risk because the dog could have gotten him with his teeth (he was a Rottweiler, after all).  The dog tried to run away once the officer appeared on the scene, so I had to block him again.  He seemed to have more energy this time and was moving with a greater sense of urgency.  I had to think twice about trying to block him, but I decided that he was more afraid than dangerous.  The officer and I kept him between us and the officer tried to lasso him with some kind of short leash.

At this point, keeping the dog between us started to resemble a soccer game and became even more difficult.  I had to repeatedly dart one way and then the other--like a cutting horse in a rodeo, actually.  The dog seemed to gravitate towards the officer, who was calling to him and trying to be friendly.  Being friendly didn't work, though, and he had to start issuing commands (like "sit", "down", and "stay").  The dog was able to sit and stay, fortunately, and the officer put the leash on him.  It looked like it was going smoothly until the dog really got wild and started pulling on the leash and wildly trying to escape.  He had no intention of giving up and I was afraid for the officer's safety.  The officer looked like he was getting either a taser or a gun ready, so I was pretty worried for the dog's safety, too.  Thankfully, the officer kept it controlled enough and tried to calm the dog as well as he could while still issuing commands.  The leash seemed to be some kind of choking device that didn't release when the dog pulled on it.  He cut off his own air supply and fell to the ground--not a pretty sight.  The officer maintained his cool and as soon as the dog was in kind of a twilight state, he risked putting his hand right near the dog's mouth in order to release the collar and restore the dog's normal breathing.

After all of that, the dog was calm and even friendly, and the officer was able to calmly bring him into his cruiser.  I was impressed by both the officer's sense of restraint and his bravery in risking injury to get the job done.  I told him as much, that he was brave, and that I was glad he was able to round up the dog without injury to either of them.  He said that it was better than the dog getting hit by a car.

I hated to see the dog captured in this way because he's likely to end up at Pima Animal Care Center.  Nonetheless, I'm glad that he was contained so that he couldn't get hurt or killed, or cause injury to a motorist.  He was so determined to run around on six-lane Broadway that he would most likely have gotten killed.  I'd like to give a hearty thumbs-up to the police officer for being brave enough to risk injury for the sake of the safety of the dog and others.  It was important for him to show the restraint that he did, too.  Another dog rescue well done!  Here's hoping that his ultimate fate is a good one.  I'll be alerting my dog rescue network to try to influence this.