Dog Day Morning

OK, so I’m sitting on the Max engrossed in my book, only remotely aware of the stopping and starting of the train at the various stations. Suddenly a man’s voice calls out “DOG ON BOARD!” and I see this flash of fur to my right.

And I’m thinking What fresh hell is this? Somebody’s therapy dog escaped, or what? I look to the right in time to see this gigantic german shepherd head insert itself fully into my open-top lunch tote, and I yell, “Hey!”
I look up at the human who is seemingly in pursuit of the dog and I see that the human is not in pursuit at all, but just sort of standing there watching and beaming, as if “Aint that a great animal?”
And I’m thinking both he and the dog and the identically dressed man behind him are completely nuts, all three of them.
“What’s he doing?” I demand indignantly.
“Just checkin you out,” says the first man, smiling.
“But WHY?” I ask, totally confused. This total stranger animal is going way too far into my personal space and I can’t figure out why this seems PERFECTLY OK to its owner, who continues to act like this is an unremarkable event.
“That’s just what they do,” he answers. And they both dart back out the closing train doors with the dog, just as fast as they’d darted in, the word POLICE now legible in large while letters across the backs of their shirts. I knew they were something, with their matching outfits and all, I just wasn’t sure. I don’t think they had the usual ton of equipment hanging from their belts. The whole thing took about five seconds.

I asked a couple of people sitting nearby if they’d ever seen that before and they nodded knowingly. No wonder no one else was batting an eye. So wow, I guess that’s normal life now. Am I hopelessly out of it, or is that as weird as I think it is? In spite of the fact that I have nothing to hide, and apart from the fact that I’m not keen on dogs in the first place, I didn’t like how that felt. Am I being too picky? When did this start? And how come I’ve never heard of it?