Mother Goose Calls the Cops to Help Save her Gosling

2 minute read

When her baby was in trouble, a mother stopped at nothing to get help and went straight to the police for assistance. That’s a pretty run-of-the-mill story until you find out that mother in question was a goose.

An Ohio police officer was sitting in his cruiser when he heard a tapping at the door. He opened it to find a determined goose adamantly demanding attention. “It kept pecking and pecking and normally they don’t come near us. Then it walked away and then it stopped and looked back so I followed it and it led me right over to the baby that was tangled up in all that string,” Officer Givens told Cincinnati news outlet WKRC.

Givens found a gosling tangled in a balloon string (ironically, it was a Mother’s Day balloon that had trapped the bird). The officer and his partner, Specialist Cecilia Charron called the local SPCA, but when no animal rescue specialist was available, they took matters into their own hands. “Specialist Charron came and untangled it. It took her awhile because it was all wrapped up,” Givens said, noting that: “The mother goose didn’t bother her.” Soon enough the gosling was free and he and his clever mother swam away.

Givens recorded the incident on his cellphone, to show that while firefighters may rescue kittens stuck in trees, police have the goose rescue market cornered. No word on whether any Mother Goose poems will be written in honor of the heroic goose.

More Must-Reads From TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com