When police officers first came across Tinsley the Shiloh shepherd running around on a New Hampshire interstate Monday evening, they thought they had a lost or stray dog on their hands.
Tinsley wouldn’t go to the officers who were trying to remove her from the road; she would stay just out of their grasp.
“They could tell the dog was trying to show them something because she kept trying to get away from them but didn’t run away totally. It was kind of, ‘Follow me. Follow me,'” New Hampshire State Police Lt. Daniel Baldassarre told reporters.
New Hampshire state trooper Tom Sandberg and other officers from a nearby detachment followed Tinsley and quickly realized what the dog was trying to tell them – just across the border, in Vermont, they found a damaged section of guardrail.
Tinsley was peering over the side of the road, looking at her owner’s truck, which had gone off the road rolled down the embankment. The dog’s owner and another passenger were ejected from the truck, were badly injured and suffering from hypothermia. The truck was badly damaged, too.
“This was almost like a real-life Lassie situation,” Baldassarre told CNN. “It’s really quite remarkable. This dog definitely saved their lives. I don’t think they would have survived the night given the temperatures.”
Tinsley’s owner, Cam Laundry, told WPTZ that his dog is often by his side on truck rides, and called her his “guardian angel.”
“It’s a miracle that she had that kind of intelligence to do what she did.”
Laundry said Tinsley had earned some venison and back scratches for her heroic efforts.