A beagle returned home with an unusual find that has led to a criminal investigation in the town of Gallup, New Mexico: a human skull.

The dog found the remains Saturday evening and carried them home. Its owner, who lives on the west end of Gallup’s airport, then alerted authorities, John Allen, deputy police chief, told msnbc.com.

Police have determined the skull was from an individual believed to be a man, roughly 35 to 45 years old, who probably died about three years ago, Allen said.

Police decided to search a field around where the beagle lives since they figured the canine couldn’t have walked too far with the skull due to the dog's size. Their search turned up other human bones that “we believe are related to this skull,” Allen said.

“It is a criminal investigation at this time and until we determine otherwise, or receive other information, we’re going to continue along this path,” he said. “We’re attempting to identify who this individual may be … we may possibly have a lead and we’re looking into that right now.”

Gallup Police Det. John Yearley said dogs and coyotes unearth human remains a few times a year. In one case last year, dogs found bones that led police to a homicide case.

Police put the beagle on a leash to see if it could lead them to more remains, but the dog didn't, Yearley said. More bones were found near a coyote den, said Yearley, adding that he believed the body had been buried.

Of the beagle, he said, it is "quite the rabbit hunter. How he switched off from rabbits to the skull, I don't know."

Beagles have the best ground scenting ability among popular dog breeds, a trait that made them popular rabbit hunters in centuries past, according to SPCA International.

Gallup is a rural area that is home to about 20,000 people and borders the Navajo reservation, Allen said. It is about 140 miles west of Albuquerque.

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Police say a group of teens swiped a vehicle for a joy ride, not knowing it was a bait car carrying a surveillance camera that caught their 20-minute trip around Albuquerque on video.

“It was one of the cars we park randomly around the city, specifically in hot spots where we have repeated auto burglaries and auto theft,” Albuquerque Police Officer Robert Gibbs said on Wednesday.

Bait cars, also called decoy cars, are commonly used by law enforcement agencies nationwide to catch car thieves. Vehicles are often modified with GPS tracking, audio and video surveillance and can be remotely controlled. In a Texas case, police have turned to the public’s help in locating a couple who took a "bait car" with a hidden camera for a quick spin.

Link to the video: See the decoy car escapade

Surveillance video from Albuquerque shows a 15-year-old boy jumping into the driver’s seat of the car, picking up three friends along the way, according to KOAT-TV, an ABC News affiliate in Albuquerque.

The scene is joyous with smiles and high-fives, the teens calling each other “dog.”

"I saw this car with the keys inside. I opened the door, it was unlocked. I grabbed the keys and was like, this is the car," the teen driver says in the video.

Video: Cops catch car thieves with hidden camera

It doesn’t take long for the teens to get worried and begin to conspire. They talk about ditching the car and torching it, blaming the whole thing on someone else, according to KOAT-TV.

"Oh my God, dog, what if we go to jail for this?! This is grand theft auto, dog! I'm (expletive) hopping the (expletive) out and running for my life! I'm on (expletive) probation," one of teens is heard saying.

Video: Boy, 11, steals car, goes for joyride, police say

But their ride comes to an end when the boys see red-and-blue lights flashing in the rear-view window.

“That’s a cop,” a teen passenger is heard saying.

His pal confirms the obvious.

Gibbs said the four boys, whose identities were withheld because of their age, were charged with auto burglary and unlawful taking of a motor vehicle, both felony offenses.

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SUMMERVILLE, S.C. -- A 2-month-old child was killed and dismembered by a dog in his family's South Carolina home as his father slept, authorities said Friday.

Aiden McGrew's mother called 911 when she got home around 11 a.m. and discovered the boy's leg was severed by a retriever-Labrador mix the family had taken into the home a few weeks earlier, Dorchester County deputies said.

The boy died at the hospital a short time later, Coroner Chris Nisbet said in a news release.

Nisbet said the boy was bitten and dismembered, but he refused to answer additional questions about the infant's injuries. An autopsy was scheduled for Saturday.

"Today is one of the saddest days in my 20+ years of being in the Dorchester County Coroner's Office as I report to all of you one of the worst deaths I have ever handled," Nisbet wrote in his email to the media, which had the subject line "Today's Nightmare."

McGrew's mother was taking the family's 7-year-old child to the doctor. The father was sleeping in a bedroom with a 3-year-old child, while the baby was in a swing outside that room, Dorchester County Sheriff L.C. Knight said.

Investigators are still trying to sort out how the attack unfolded. The father was being questioned by deputies Friday afternoon, Knight said.

"It's terrible. I don't want to go into details about exactly what happened because the investigation is still ongoing," Knight said. "It was a real bad scene."

The two other children in the home have been taken into protective custody, Knight said. Prosecutors are also following the case and the sheriff expects all the investigators will meet next week to discuss if any charges should be filed.

A woman answering a number listed for the home refused to talk about what happened and told a reporter to not call her back.

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Ouch! A woman walking her dog near an apartment complex in Longwood, Fla., early Friday morning was bitten in the rear end by a bear.

A wildlife official told the Orlando Sentinel that the woman was taken to a nearby hospital after the incident, which took place northeast of Orlando, the home of Disney World.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokeswoman Joy Hill said the attack happened at about 7 a.m. 

The woman was taken to Florida Hospital-Altamonte in Altamonte Springs with four puncture wounds, the paper reported.

According to the Sentinel, the woman was disposing of her dog's waste into the apartment complex's trash container when she turned around, saw the bear and stumbled to the ground. She was then attacked.

The bear may have been spooked by the woman's large dog, an Akita Shepherd mix, Hill said.

Traps set
Hill told the Sentinel that officers are setting traps for the bear, which will be euthanized if it is caught.

Florida black bears, which are a sub-species, are listed by the state's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission as being a threatened animal. However, they have surged in numbers in recent decades, the paper reported, rebounding from about 300 to about 3,000, and the commission has proposed taking the species off the list.

Mike Orlando, who works for the wildlife agency, told the Sentinel that bear sightings are not uncommon in the area, which is near a state park, but that attacks are rare.

A resident of the complex, Arlene Friedlander, 79, told the paper that she often sees bears near the apartments. "I'm not afraid of them," she said.

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It's happened again: A hunting dog has shot its master.

This time, a man in Florida was hit in the thigh by a round from his Remington .308 on Saturday, TBO.com reported.

The culprit was a bulldog named Eli. Authorities told TBO.com that Billy E. Brown, 78, was driving to go deer hunting with a friend on a bumpy road in Pasco County near Tampa when Eli "got excited in the truck" and bumped the rifle. The gun discharged, the bullet hit Brown in the right thigh, and he was taken to St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa, said Officer George Wells, spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Brown's condition was not released.

Wells said Brown and the friend were about one-and-a-half miles into the woods when the accident -- if you're buying that the dog didn't mean to do that -- occurred. 

The name of Brown's friend was not released. The two have been hunting together for more than 25 years, Wells told TBO.com.

This incident follows one Dec. 1 in which a hunter in Utah was hit in the buttocks by birdshot after his dog stepped on a shotgun laid across the bow of a boat. The Salt Lake City Tribune said the wounded hunter had 27 pellets removed from ... well, you know.

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