HUTCHINSON, Kan. — All too often, stray animals are brought in to the local animal shelter. Those animals are often never adopted. Although every effort is exhausted to find the animal a home, it can lead to the animal being put down.

That was not the case for one dog in the county. On Tuesday, Reno County Sheriff’s Deputy Jeremy VanWey was called out to an area near Cheney Lake for the report of an injured dog. When he arrived, he found the yellow lab mix with a leg injury. When efforts to find an owner of the dog failed, he called the animal shelter.

The shelter told him it couldn’t take every dog that comes in, so the deputy took the matter into his own hands. VanWey called his wife and asked her if she wanted another dog. When she said yes, the deputy took the dog to a vet clinic. After a night’s stay, he took the dog home.

“It was an easy decision to make,” VanWey said. “When I came back to the house, he was out with the other dogs that belonged at the residence.”

VanWey said he’s still not sure how the animal became injured, but with the near misses, VanWey’s wife had an appropriate name for the new family pet: Dodge.