Woof, Woof!

Cops threatened to send in a dog to drive out two felons holed up in a house in Westville. The only problem: they didn’t actually have a dog on the scene.

Instead, one officer went in the backyard and started barking. He turned out to be just as good as the real thing.

Here’s what happened, according to police spokesman Officer Dave Hartman:

At 10:40 a.m. on Friday, Hamden police called off the pursuit of a stolen car they’d been chasing and notified New Haven police. New Haven cops spotted it and also gave chase, before calling it off when it got too dangerous.

Moments later, police received a report of two masked men going in the back door of a three-family home on Emerson Street in Westville. Police arrived and spotted the car they had been chasing. Cops created a secure perimeter around the house.

“Officer John Lalli, a veteran Westville officer, knew the first floor was vacant, the second was the owner’s and the third was rented to a family,” Hartman said. ​“He phoned the third-floor tenants and told them to lock the door and stay put. He phoned the owner, who was out, and told him to meet them at the house.”

Officer Frank Lombardi and Lt. Joseph Witkowski told the two men to come out or cops would send in a police dog.

“There was no police canine available, so an officer positioned in the back yard began barking like a dog,” Hartman said. ​“After hearing the barking, the two emerged.”

Police arrested the two men, both convicted felons, on charges of stealing a car and burglary. Other charges are pending.

In other police news, according to Hartman:

Yale cops caught a man in the parking lot on Broadway after he stole a pocketbook, committed a car-jacking, assaulted a woman, and then tried to sneak out in the backseat of another car.

At 1 a.m. on Friday, the man approached two women who had gotten into their car in the lot. He asked for a ride. When the women refused, the man reached in the window and stole a pocketbook. He ran off with one of the women chasing him.

The purse-snatcher then doubled back and got into the car, where the other woman was still sitting in the passenger seat. He tried to leave the lot but got stuck in a line of traffic waiting to exit.

The man punched the woman in the passenger seat repeatedly in the face, then got out of the car.

Police later found him in the backseat of a white car that was leaving the lot. The two women in that car told police they didn’t know the man, but were trying to help him because it looked like he was being attacked.

Police charged the man with car-jacking, kidnapping in the second degree, larceny in the second degree, assault in the third degree and interfering with police.

For block-by-block year-to-date crime info, check the Independent’s crime map.