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MAGNA — It all started on the side of the road in Magna. A dog possibly stolen and its owners frantic to find him, mainly because this wasn’t just any ordinary dog.
For Sgt. Jodie Sampson, a parking lot makes a perfect office as she completes paperwork and waits for calls. But last week, a call found her, and it was the start of a tiny adventure.
“He said, ‘excuse me, but I found this dog and I need to catch this bus over here, can you take him?’ ” Sampson said.
The dog was a pit-bull, restrained by a makeshift leash.
“In 20 years I’ve never had somebody hand me a dog on a shoelace,” Sampson said.
She called for backup to a fellow officer with a cage in the back of his patrol car.
“I got out of the car and immediately started saying ‘good dog, good dog,’ trying to assess whether or not he was going to be aggressive,” officer Dustin Olzack said. “He started wagging his tail and ran right up me. I thought, “OK, well he’s either going to bite me or he’s going to like me.’ ”
The officers’ plans to find his home were immediately derailed as a call came in — a man with a gun at a nearby park.
“We kind of looked at each other and said, ‘what do we do?’ ” Sampson said. “I said, ‘we take him with us. He goes, OK, he’s my K-9.’ ”
So much has happened in the last year, to have this generosity is amazing. It's definitely restored my faith in people and definitely the police force.
–Morgan Spratt
When they arrived at the park, the call turned out to be nothing. The officers called animal control, who came and picked up the dog. Just a few minutes later another call came in, this time for theft.
“Maybe five minutes later office Olzack got a call of a theft,” Sampson said. “The owner thought he had been stolen. In fact, over the radio I said, ‘let me know if it’s a pitbull.’ ”
The pit bull’s name was Cooper and his owner, Morgan Spratt, was frantic. She let him out in the morning to use the bathroom and he bolted — something he’s never done before.
Cooper is no ordinary dog; his true owner is a little girl with special needs.
“She was scared he was never going to come home, that she was never going to see him again,” Spratt said. “So I was determined to get him back.”
“My daughter was having separation anxiety really bad when she was younger,” Spratt said. “He was more to calm her down.”
By then, Cooper was already booked into the jail for those with four legs.
“I felt bad we had taken him down there,” Sampson said.
Especially when they learned the dog’s owner couldn’t make bail. So the officers pooled their cash to spring Cooper out.
“Makes you feel good about what we do, that we can help someone out,” Sampson said.
And, with a little left over, bought him a new collar and tag so Cooper will always find his way home.
“So much has happened in the last year, to have this generosity is amazing,” Spratt said. “It’s definitely restored my faith in people and definitely the police force."
