--- 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: 2698 og:image:height: 1518 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 > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Apr 15, 2014 4:17 PM UTC  Communicating Communicating Getty 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. 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