Woman Reports 'Dead' Dog On Road — And Officials Are In For A Surprise

NO ONE was expecting this 😂

Kristen Polletta was driving to work in Providence, Rhode Island, one morning last fall when she saw something that made her heart instantly sink.

A little mound of shaggy black fur was lying on the side of the busy road — and it was wearing a pink collar. Saddened by the sight, Polletta reached out to the Providence Animal Control Center as soon as she got to work to report where it was, in case the animal’s owner was still out searching for their pet. It looked like the poor animal may have been deceased for a while, Polletta said.

dog rescue wig
Kristen Polletta

“I was a bit surprised since I recognized the location and knew that there were not many homes in the area,” animal control director Erika Cole told The Dodo. “I was hoping that the poor thing hadn't jumped out of a car window, or something worse.”

When the shelter dispatched an officer to the scene, he couldn’t believe his eyes. There was no dog — but there was, in fact, a messy wig at the side of the road with a pink hair band in it.

Polletta, having not been able to get a close enough look as she drove by, had accidentally called animal control on a wig. “My officer came back to the shelter and through streams of laughter, told me that the deceased dog was actually the flattest wig he had ever seen!” Cole said. “We all got a pretty good laugh out of the situation and we were very much relieved that it was not a dog!”

dog wig rescue
The wig that Polletta mistook for a dog | Kristen Polletta

It turns out, Polletta wasn’t the first person in the town to have mistakenly led animal control to a supposed pet in trouble. The situation described was rather gruesome — which just makes it even funnier considering the real identity of the “strange bag” someone found.

“We've had only one other similar call like this one — regarding a bagged Thanksgiving dinner reported to be a bag of ‘dead cats and mummified kittens,’” Cole said. “Thank goodness it was only turkey bones and stuffing!”

dog rescue wig
Kristen Polletta

Luckily, neither case of mistaken identity was an emergency — and Polletta’s good-intentioned plea was so sweet for the officers to see. It’s better to be safe than sorry — and with countless pets being abandoned or becoming lost each year, it’s unfortunately not an impossible scenario.

Two months later, authorities still haven’t been able to track down the ratty wig’s rightful owner. As it turns out, some things are just better left untamed.

For information on (actual) adoptable pets at the rescue, click here. To help animals in need, you can make a donation.