A couple of dogs that got loose in the middle of Sunday night’s blizzard made it home safely thanks to the help of a pair of Fort Dodge police officers.

Lt. Joe Bates and Patrol Officer Bryan Slama helped Kari Swisher find her runaway dogs.

“Without these two officers, I would have never found them,” Swisher said Monday afternoon.

“I just appreciate the Police Department in general and I really appreciate these two officers going above and beyond and caring about their citizens,” she added.

Police Chief Dennis Quinn described Bates and Slama as “very excellent veteran officers.”

“They do this kind of thing all the time and just consider it a routine part of their jobs,” he said. “This had a great outcome. It just shows that the little things they do every day have a great impact on people’s lives.”

The Swishers’ dogs — a St. Bernard named Ty and a Newfoundland named Ivy — got out of the family’s home in The Woodlands neighborhood sometime Sunday night. Swisher said the dogs had never run away before. She and her daughter, who were the only ones home, went out looking for the dogs.

She recalled that the weather was “horrible” with bitterly cold temperatures and blowing snow. She estimated that they had been driving around looking for the dogs for about an hour when they saw a police vehicle. It was Bates, making a patrol through their neighborhood. She explained to him that they were looking for the runaway dogs. He immediately agreed to help them.

Bates radioed a description of the missing dogs to the other officers on duty.

Slama replied that he saw them about 20 minutes previously in the area of the Fort Dodge Middle School at 800 N. 32nd St, which is a significant distance southeast of The Woodlands neighborhood. Swisher said she would have never thought of looking for them there.

Slama went back to the middle school area to look for the dogs. He found them on Fifth Avenue North, east of 32nd Street.

Bates led the Swishers to Fifth Avenue North.

Swisher said when she got there, the dogs were wrestling in the glow of the headlights of Slama’s patrol vehicle.

“They just hopped in my car and came home,” she said.

She said Ty and Ivy didn’t suffer any ill effects from their adventure.

“It just shows that our police officers go above and beyond,” she said. “Without them I would never have found them.”

Quinn said the Police Department exists to “protect and serve even the good animals in our community.”