POLICE have revealed more ridiculous calls to 999 in a bid to get people to ‘think before they dial’.

Thames Valley Police has said a lot of people use the emergency number about non-police related topics – including one-woman last week who phoned about her neighbour being locked out.

In fact, silly calls aren’t as uncommon as they should be and police say that officers spend ‘thousands of hours’ listening to complaints about abandoned cars, noise houses and bad food at restaurants.

In the latest call shared on Facebook a resident says: “Yes, Hello.

“I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing here but basically, what it is, I was in Reading town centre today. I don’t know if the man is homeless or what but he had a very small Yorkshire terrier with him.

“A sandy colour, and it looked like it was…it needed help.

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“Basically, I didn’t do anything about it at first because I didn’t want the bloke knowing that I was going to make a phone call.

“Basically, I’m a bit concerned about the dog really, because, some of the dogs fur was missing.”

The call handler interrupted, saying: “Can I stop you. If you’ve got concerns about the welfare of the dog you shouldn’t be speaking to the police, you should be speaking to the RSPCA.

“Alright. This isn’t something that we should be taking on the 999 line.

“If you want to speak to the police and it’s not an emergency situation, you need to be dialling 101.”

  • In an emergency always call 999 
  • In a non-emergency call 101 
  • To report a crime online, click here. 
  • To report a crime anonymously call the chairty Criestoppers on 0800 555 111.