Photos: Dogs hitch ride on Prince George’s Co. fire truck

WASHINGTON — Prince George’s County firefighters are calling it a “Dog day of summer” after giving three dogs a ride home aboard a fire truck in Oxon Hill, Maryland.

It started Saturday morning outside a Home Depot in Oxon Hill. Firefighters showed up to check on a man complaining about chest pains, but they learned he wasn’t really sick.

Instead he told firefighters “he had been drinking and he was intoxicated,” according to fire department spokesman Mark Brady. They tried to offer him a ride to get checked out by doctors, but it turns out he just really wanted to go home.

“But we couldn’t just let him drive away in his condition,” said Brady. Police convinced the man to walk, but Brady said there was some concern about him walking home with the three dogs.

“So the firefighters offered to take the three dogs home with them on board their fire engine,” Brady said. “They did so. The dogs were very good-natured. They seemed to enjoy the ride in the different type of vehicle. Holding their heads out the window of a fire truck is something different you don’t see every day going down the road.”

More