AUGUSTA, GA — The spouse of a Ft. Gordon soldier is breathing easier after a military police officer removed a Doritos bag from its head.

Several witnesses reported to law enforcement officials that they saw the spouse wandering on lawns in base housing with a family-sized Doritos bag over its head and flailing its arms.

"I tried to run over to help," said Sergeant First Class Tom Wilkins, an area resident, "but it disappeared into the woods before I could get there."

The spouse was spotted later in the day in the PX parking lot by a worker out collecting shopping carts.

"I hate to see this," said the employee, Ernesto Macapagal. "It hurts my heart to see them when they suffer."

Macapagal was too afraid to approach the spouse himself, so he reported the incident to his manager, who then called MPs.

MP Commander Maj. Harold Alonzo said the spouse allowed the officer to remove the bag without a struggle.

Military spouses are usually docile and content to remain in their habitats, but are known to venture out of their territory when hungry or during mating seasons, such as the middle of a unit's deployment cycle, according to a publication from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

While once rare for a spouse to leave a house with a chip bag stuck on its head, Alonzo said that with buy-one-get-one-free sales going on at the commissary, he now sees this exact same incident happen two or three times a week.

"I wish I was able to ask it what happened," Alonzo said, "but my best guess is that it was startled by something it saw on Maury."

"I suppose we're lucky that the smell of nacho cheese helped keep it relatively calm," Alonzo added.

The spouse was taken to the base veterinary clinic, where it was spayed, tagged, and released back to base housing. It has apparently made a full recovery and gone back to its daily routine, as it has been spotted driving a 2013 GMC Terrain reportedly purchased with deployment paychecks.

Upon being notified of the incident and threatened with a fine if it happens again, the deployed soldier instructed MPs to capture the beast and euthanize it.