It was a phone call one dog owner is likely to never forget.
A Colorado woman had dropped her dog Charlie off at a doggie day care in downtown Denver Tuesday when she got an unusual call at work, asking her to hurry back.
“She’s high on heroin,” Laura, who didn’t want her last name used, recalled to The Denver Channel about the frightening phone call. “We’re treating her, but you need to come as soon as you can.”
Her beloved dog Charlie had been playing in Bark and Play’s fenced-in yard when police said a suspected drug dealer tossed 17 bags of heroin over the fence as he tried to escape pursuing officers, the local station reported.
The bags landed among the dogs, surveillance video obtained by the local news station shows, and Charlie, as well as another dog that belongs to an employee, began eating them, day care owner Garrett Bishop told The Huffington Post on Thursday.
Fortunately for the dogs, there was an eagle-eyed employee not far away.
“They noticed something was on the floor [and] they got rid of it immediately,” Bishop said of the baggies.
Charlie was rushed to a vet and given charcoal as well as the opiate antidote Narcan. The suspect, meanwhile, was reportedly arrested not long after.
Bishop said all of the dogs are doing well.
“You can’t process the fact that your dog ate heroin,” Laura said while sitting next to Charlie, whom she described as lethargic after Tuesday’s events.
Bishop also expressed his shock over what happened. He described his business as located next door to an elementary school and having “lots of families and young kids” around.
“It’s a bad thing and I’ve never heard of it happening before and I’m sure it won’t happen again,” he said.
A spokesman for the Denver Police Department confirmed Tuesday’s incident to HuffPost but declined further comment pending a review by the district attorney’s office, which they said will release the suspect’s name.