Police officer barks like a dog in the woods in order to get wanted teens to surrender

A police officer resorted to a rather unusual technique in an attempt to get wanted teens to surrender.

Bodycam footage from a Washington State police officer has gone viral on social media for the most obvious of reasons.

The suspects the cops were hunting down had taken refuge in a wooded area last month in a bid to hide themselves from being captured.

Unable to locate them, one of the officers decided to try and bluff the teens with a rather unorthodox strategy. Take a look:

While shouting out at the teens to surrender, who were believed to have stolen a car, he called out: "Don't make us release our K-9s!" - referring, of course, to police dogs.

The officer then proceeded to bark like a dog in an attempt to convince the teens that they did, indeed, have dogs with them.

They don't teach you that at Police Academy!

Except the officer's 'barking' was less than convincing, sounding about one woof away from shouting 'Shaggy?!' into the woods. A voice artist he was not.

But even more astonishingly, despite the less than convincing performance it appears that the two suspects were actually duped by the impression.

Pierce County Sheriffs Department

The video goes on to show them exiting from the undergrowth and surrendering to the officers.

They go on to tell deputies that they actually believed that there was a dog there with the officers.

The footage was posted to the Pierce County Sheriff's Department's Facebook page, with Sgt. Darren Moss Jr. saying: "The kids actually believed there was a dog, and, in the end, they told the deputies, 'Man, soon as I heard that dog, I gave up'."

Despite the teens being taken in to custody, people online were less than convinced by the barking.

One wrote: "I can't believe them kids believed there was a dog. That was a horrible bark. He sounded like a wounded hound dog."

Another wrote: "How did they believe that was a dog?"

Pierce County Sheriffs Department

And a third said: "Worst dog imitation I've ever heard."

However, one other person was quick to point out that even though the impression was less than convincing, it still got the job done.

They wrote: "If it works, it's not stupid."

In fairness, it's one thing listening to something online and quite another when you're hiding from the police in the woods, and probably more than a little nervous.

On the other hand, you might stop to wonder why the dogs were so polite that they only barked when the officers stopped talking.

Pierce County Sheriff's Department has not revealed any details about the suspects' identities or the charges that they could be facing after their arrests.