Not every police pursuit ends with flashing lights and a felony charge. Some end with wagging tails and a grassy median. That was very much the case in Oklahoma City on Tuesday morning, when a pair of dogs decided to take their morning run somewhere a little more ambitious than the backyard.
The two dogs were spotted by Sky 5, the only news helicopter in the air on weekday mornings in the area, trotting along Oklahoma City Boulevard near Interstate 40. They looked relaxed. They looked happy. They looked like they had absolutely no interest in being told what to do. A police unit fell in behind them and began what had to be one of the more unusual assignments in the officer’s career, following the dogs the wrong way up a highway ramp while other motorists did the sensible thing and slowed to a stop.
What made the footage particularly memorable was the dogs’ attitude. They weren’t panicked. They weren’t darting through traffic. They were jogging along with the kind of confidence usually reserved for someone who knows exactly where they’re going, which these two clearly did not. More than once, they glanced back at the police cruiser trailing them, as if checking to make sure their escort was keeping up. At one point they strolled past slowed oncoming traffic and paused to inspect those vehicles too, which is either very brave or very oblivious, depending on your perspective…