Deputy uses skills learned from TV to lasso loose sheep on the highway

April 19 (UPI) -- An Indiana sheriff's deputy used amateur cowboy skills he learned from a TV series to lasso a loose sheep that wandered onto the highway.

The Scott County Sheriff's Office said Deputy Skylar Thompson was among those who responded to the area of mile marker 37 on southbound Interstate 65 on a report of a road obstruction.

Thompson told WDRB-TV a miscommunication initially led deputies to think there was "a sheet of metal in the roadway," but they arrived at the scene to discover the culprit was actually a loose sheep.

"Deputy Thompson located what he recognized as a 'sheep trying to hitch-hike on the interstate,' which is illegal in Indiana," the sheriff's office said in a Facebook post.

Thompson went into action when the sheriff's office was unable to contact animal control personnel. He ended up using a borrowed lasso and some skills he learned from a popular TV series.

"I think it's, more or less, I watch too much Yellowstone," Thompson said.

Thompson was able to get the lasso around the sheep's neck and escort it out of the roadway.

"It was pure luck," he said.

The sheriff's office said the wayward sheep, believed to have fallen from the back of a truck, was returned to its owner.