Animal handlers in San Diego County, California had their hands full lately. The Chula Vista Animal Services received on 1 July a report of stray animals in a neighborhood off Woods Drive and asked County Animal Services (CAS) for help to round them up.

CAS Lt. Talia Padilla recalled luring the roaming pigs into a trailer with some food, UPI reported. The collared mother sow, nine piglets and a pot-bellied pig were taken to the San Diego County Animal Shelter in Bonita to find their owners or a new home.

Meanwhile, Bob Gist, 61, of Arkansas and his friend, Brad Carlisle, of Tennessee, went fishing on Grenada Lake in Mississippi together with 20-something Jordan Chrestman as their local fishing guide last month.

Half a mile offshore, they heard barking and then saw on the horizon some dogs in the water, Fox News reported. The three also saw a deer in the water that the hunting dogs were chasing. When they approached the pups, they were shocked to see so many dogs treading water.

“We were just flabbergasted because it was dogs everywhere, and they were all going in different directions because they could no longer see the bank on either side,” said Gist, according to Fox News.

“And they were all hunting dogs. We could clearly see that because they had expensive GPS radio collars on them.”

They grabbed the fox hunters one by one and hauled them onto the boat so they wouldn’t drown. Twenty-seven dogs were rescued and brought to shore where the owner was in a panic and calling for help, Gist recalled.

The rescuers and one who tracked the dogs through their GPS collars went back to the lake to rescue the remaining pups. A total 38 dogs were rescued from the lake and their owner, who was participating in the annual fox hunt, hailed the fishers as heroes.