Arizona Troopers Are The Top Dogs In Phoenix Freeway Chase

PHOENIX, AZ — Arizona state troopers were involved in an unusual chase during rush hour Monday morning, and were the motorists on Interstate 10 at Seventh Street in Phoenix ever happy to see them. That’s often not the case, but this time, people were cheering the cops.

When they caught up with him, everyone was relieved. The subject’s ordeal was as plain as the blood on its paws.

Paws? The quarry was a dog.

"The dog looked like it had been running around quite a bit, its paws looked a little bloody," Trooper Mike Grzybowsk, who was the first to respond to the call, told television station . "I couldn't tell if it was hit or not or injured or hurt in another way, but it was pretty much spent."

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Trooper Patrick Stoner earned the moniker of “dog whisperer” for his deft handling of the poor pooch.

“That’s what they’re saying,” he told the television station, adding, “I don’t think so.

“It was just the heat,” he said. “The heat and the dog being friendly helped us.”

He calmed the dog like a pro.

"I try and earn its trust by lowering my hand to the lower part of its face, so that it knows that I'm not trying to hit it, actually coming to help it," he said.

The dog was taken to the Maricopa County Animal Shelter in Phoenix.

Photo by Shutterstock / Thomas Trompeter