A police officer with the Dallas Police Department was caught by residents caught taking selfies with his service dog.
Officer Andre Cloyd and his dog Zigi were patrolling at Love Field Airport at the weekend when a traveler captured a series of adorable pictures of the work partners posing for selfies together.
Gina Anzaldua, a kind citizen, uploaded the pictures of the officer and the dog on a dog group on Facebook and told its members how the officer showed all pictures to the dog after clicking them.
The post Gina made got shared by thousands of people and it eventually reached Cloyd.
Upon seeing the post, the officer shared it to his own page, and said, “Thank you for all the love shown to Zigi and I.”
During an interview with Cloyd, he explained how his dog selfies started with a text message thread between him and his family.
While speaking with NBC 5, Cloyd said, “We communicate every day – maybe a phone call, a video chat, an email.”
Cloyd is the only one in his family that is living in North Texas.
On the morning of the incident, Cloyd said his mother had sent him a selfie of herself at work, wishing the entire family a good day at work.
The officer recalled: “I was on my way into work, and I said, ‘I’ll just take her a photo once I get inside’.”
The pair made their way into the airport to check everything was okay when Cloyd took out his smartphone to take the images.
Cloyd said he had no idea someone else was taking the pictures too.
Cloyd said, “It was kind of cool that she shared it, and it was able to come full circle back to me. It was pretty cool to be part of something that big.”
With the rest of his family living extremely away from him, the police officer said that he considers Zigi and his other dog Bentley as his family.
Talking about his family, he said, “Hey, these are my pets, these are my dogs, these are my two kids.”
He added, “We take photos together, we watch movies together, we go to the gym together.”
Cloyd said it is an honor for him to be part of the Dallas Police Department’s K-9 Unit.
He said he has been an animal lover his entire life.
Cloyd explained, “To get paid to do something you’ve loved since the age of four, it’s a privilege, definitely.”
He added, “Zigi’s the star, but even more so, we’re just a small piece of a unit, a department, and a law enforcement community that does everything we can to ensure the safety of the passengers.
Man, this is a story that we needed.