Poncho: the police dog who performs CPR

On Friday, Madrid’s municipal police introduced the city’s residents to a four-legged hero - Poncho, a dog who has been trained to perform life-saving CPR.

A clip posted to the police Twitter account starts with a police dog trainer pretending to collapse during a public demonstration of Poncho’s talent.

Seconds after he hits the ground, Poncho races to his side and leaps forward, pounding his paws onto the centre of the seemingly unconscious man’s chest, while the audience applauds.

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At one point, the animal even pauses to press his ear to his handler’s chest to listen to his breathing.

“‘Heroic’ performance by our #4LeggedComrade Poncho, who didn’t hesitate to ‘save’ the officer, administering CPR in masterly fashion,” the force wrote in the tweet.

The tweet ends with a familiar quote from American humorist Josh Billings: “A dog is the only thing on Earth that loves you more than he loves himself.”

As you may have predicted, thank to the dog-loving internet, Poncho’s fame soon spread well beyond the Spanish capital. Since Friday, the clip has been viewed more than 2.2 million times and shared around the world.