Victoria residents, Blake and Marla Handley were at an event when they came back to find their car window smashed.

Turns out, a passing couple saw what they thought was a living dog inside the Handleys’ vehicle and smashed the window to save him from dying of heat exhaustion.

But the dog happened to be a stuffed one – a toy that the couple keeps in memoriam of their recently deceased bearded collie.

They stuck around to explain

According to a Facebook post from Handley, the couple stuck around to explain why they did what they did and to apologize for their actions.

Apparently they had called police when they first spotted the “dog”, and had been advised to break the window if they were really concerned.

So they did – and the rescuer even incurred a minor injury while attempting to save the toy – but ended up just costing the Handleys a nice chunk of change in the process.

“The people stayed around to say sorry,” reads the Facebook post by Blake Handley.

“I wanted to go ‘Yes, but now you owe me $200 for breaking my window’ but they were a sweet sincere old couple.”

To add an ironic twist to the tale, the Handleys were attending a recognition ceremony for donors of the SPCA at the Ocean Point Resort when the incident occurred.

To avoid a repeat incident…

It seems the Handleys have figured out a way to avoid the same thing happening to their vehicle in the future:

Making name tags for the stuffed dog that say “NOT A REAL DOG” in big red letters!

https://www.facebook.com/blake.handley/posts/10157037222692952