He Thought His Dog Had Led Him to a Rabbit. Then It Moved, and He Yelled for Help.

A Michigan man let his dog lead him down a road they usually don't walk on Monday morning. When he saw what the dog, Bobby, stopped at, he was stunned.

“He brought me over to about here, and there’s when I saw what [looked like] a rabbit at first,” Jeff Kopp of Diamond Lake, Michigan, told WOOD-TV. “Then it moved. That’s when I started yelling."

Bobby led his owner to an abandoned baby that law enforcement said was outside for up to six hours earlier this week. (Image source: WOOD-TV)

A closer look revealed it was a newborn baby with its umbilical cord still attached.

Kopp yelled for his wife and daughter, who called 911 and brought a blanket to warm the naked baby found in the grass on a cool morning, WOOD reported.

“Once the women picked her up and wrapped her up, then eventually she started to cry and we knew that she was OK,” Kopp told the news station.

Kopp's daughter, Kathleen Neal, pointed to the area where the baby was found Monday. The baby was taken to the hospital where it was later listed in fair condition. (Image source: WOOD-TV)

Medical responders arrived, evaluated the baby and took her to a local hospital, where she was later listed in fair condition, WZZM-TV reported.

“I feel that we were led to that place, OK, because it was out of the ordinary for me to come in this direction,” Kopp told WOOD. “I tend to think it was God [who] led us this way, that all life is precious to Him.”

Kathleen Neal, Kopp’s daughter, told MLive she saw a young teenage neighbor watching from across the street when the baby was found.

"She acted like she was totally clueless, like she didn’t know what happened. She said she saw a car drive by at 5:30 a.m.," Neal told MLive. "She also said that if it was hers, she would never do something like that and how could anybody do something like that to a baby."

This young woman was later found to be the mother of the child. She was taken to the hospital as well and investigators were going to interview her about the situation.

Michigan has a "Safe Delivery" law, which allows mothers to "safely surrender their newborn child no more than 72 hours old to an employee who is inside and on duty at any hospital, fire department, police station or by calling 911." The program is meant to be an alternative to complete abandonment.

With this law in place, Neal told WOOD she doesn't understand why the mother left the child outside.

“I know she’s a young girl, but she’s not stupid, so it really makes me wonder why,” Neal told the news station. “It’s just really hard to believe. It’s really hard to believe that someone would do that.”

Watch WOOD-TV's report about the incident:

As of Monday, the girl was not presented with any criminal charges.

(H/T: Daily Mail)

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This story was updated to correct a typo.