--- title: Police Respond to Emergency 999 Call From Heavy Breathing Dog description: The canine stole his owner's phone and managed to dial 999 canonical: https://time.com/63418/999-emergency-call-dog/ author: Samantha Grossman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-04-15T16:17:11.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:08:48.715Z og:title: Police Respond to Emergency Call from 'Heavy Breather' Who Ends Up Being a Dog og:description: The canine stole his owner's phone and managed to dial 999 og:url: https://time.com/63418/999-emergency-call-dog/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta4ea3a9b3e368960/69868abe1eebf7b145370679/120185791.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Dog phone og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Police Respond to Emergency Call from 'Heavy Breather' Who Ends Up Being a Dog twitter:description: The canine stole his owner's phone and managed to dial 999 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta4ea3a9b3e368960/69868abe1eebf7b145370679/120185791.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Police Respond to Emergency Call from 'Heavy Breather' Who Ends Up Being a Dog by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Apr 15, 2014 4:17 PM UTC  Communicating CommunicatingGetty Images by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Apr 15, 2014 4:17 PM UTC When authorities in Buckinghamshire, England, received a mysterious 999 call from a heavy breather, they arrived at the scene expecting an emergency, since that’s usually how things work. But there was no emergency, and the heavy-breathing caller turned out to be a dog who’d stolen his owner’s phone, the BBC [reports](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-27026260). “Thames Valley Police arrived and said they’d heard heavy breathing and didn’t know what our emergency was,” said the pooch’s owner, Mary Amos-Cole. Apparently, police already knew the dog — a two-year-old Belgian Malinois named Leighton — because he has set off Amos-Cole’s burglar alarm several times by tearing around the house. So clearly he has a crush on one (or several) of the police officers and keeps doing things to try and get them to come around more often. Police Respond to Emergency 999 Call From Heavy Breathing Dog ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/63418/999-emergency-call-dog/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/63418/999-emergency-call-dog/"},"headline":"Police Respond to Emergency Call from 'Heavy Breather' Who Ends Up Being a Dog","datePublished":"2014-04-15T16:17:11.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:08:48.715Z","description":"The canine stole his owner's phone and managed to dial 999","url":"https://time.com/63418/999-emergency-call-dog/","keywords":["Newsfeed","animals","Dogs","police","england","uk"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta4ea3a9b3e368960/69868abe1eebf7b145370679/120185791.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Samantha Grossman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta4ea3a9b3e368960/69868abe1eebf7b145370679/120185791.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Dog phone","caption":"Dog phone","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/63418/999-emergency-call-dog/","name":"Police Respond to Emergency Call from 'Heavy Breather' Who Ends Up Being a Dog"}}]}] ```