Washington: Houston doesn't get many calls like the one it received on Monday.

A woman went to an abandoned house to smoke marijuana. But inside the garage, she found a male tiger in a cage, Houston Police Department spokesman Kese Smith said.

Control officers from animal shelter BARC Houston with a tiger that was found in an abandoned house in the city. Credit:BARC Houston via The New York Times

The woman called 311, the city's non-emergency hotline. Officials, at first, were sceptical.

"We questioned them as to whether they were under the effects of the drugs or they actually saw a tiger. They saw a tiger in this building, this vacant house that's obviously been abandoned for some time," Sergeant Jason Alderete, of the department's Livestock Animal Cruelty Unit, told ABC affiliate KTRK.