It was just another cold Friday night when Jason Gasparik was driving home from work, but something out of the corner of his eye made him stop the car.
“I noticed a vehicle stopped on the road and someone was running around in the grass median,” he told The Dodo. “I then noticed the dog running in circles in the road, confused and scared.”
The dog in question was Roxy, and she was dangerously close to the busy road. Even worse, Gasparik soon realized that the 70-pound chocolate Lab was not interested in getting caught.
For over an hour, Gasparik tried everything to lure the dog towards him, including offering treats. But it was only when he noticed that the pup might be partly playing, that he was able to come up with a plan to capture her once and for all.
“I noticed she would run after me if I lightly jogged. She was playful but very apprehensive,” he said. “I decided to run around the parking lot nearby and after some laps around, she finally got tired, lay down and I was able to grab her neck scruff.”
As soon as she was safely in his car, Gasparik took the pup to the nearest 24-hour vet clinic to have her microchip checked. The vet discovered that she was chipped, however not registered with an owner, so Gasparik decided to take her home with him for the time being.
Gasparik was actually in the middle of packing to go away on a business trip, so he realized that it was urgent that he find the dog’s owner.
He took to social media to post photos and information about the dog, in the hopes that somebody would be able to recognize her.
Despite being away from her owners, Roxy seemed a little bit uncomfortable, but she was very pleased to have some attention.
“The first night I brought her to my home, she immediately jumped on my bed and landed right on top of me licking my face,” Gasparik said. “She was excited but you could tell she was so confused and scared — but happy to be hanging out with me.”
Unfortunately, Gasparik didn’t get any response from his posts on Facebook, so he decided to get creative – very creative. If the power of social media wasn’t going to reunite Roxy with her owners, then he was just going to have to do it the old fashioned way- with a hand-written, cardboard sign.
Gasparik took the sign and simply stood outside with Roxy, in the hopes that a passer-by would recognize her.
“I made my sign with an old moving box and a tiki torch pole and decided to go to the corner [where I found Roxy],” he told The Dodo.
He was running out of time before he had to leave for his scheduled business trip, so he hoped that his sign would do the trick.
“Admittedly, I felt like a complete fool when I first got out of my truck and started walking to the corner,” Gasparik added. “I almost turned around because I figured everyone would ignore me thinking I was some scammer just looking for money or something.”
Although Gasparik had decided to take his actions off social media, he soon found himself back on there again once people began to take pictures of him and Roxy with the sign. But although many people stopped to chat with him, he had no luck on Saturday.
But on Sunday, Gasparik’s luck was about to change.
That day, local photographer Eben Adrian snapped a photo that went viral.
“That’s when it skyrocketed. I was getting pinged left and right. I couldn’t keep up with all the messages I was getting,” he said, according to PEOPLE.
And some of those were from women offering to shelter BOTH Gasparik and the dog!
Not all heroes wear capes. 👏🏼😭This man is standing on the street in Ballantyne looking for this lost dog’s owner. @wcnc
Pup was found on Ballantyne Commons Pkwy(Photo: Eben Patten) pic.twitter.com/LCW9JPTlCL
— Meilin Tompkins (@MeilinTompkins) March 3, 2019
Luckily, it was that very same day that Gasparik received a message on his Nextdoor app:
“At 12:30, I was again standing on the corner with my sign and I got a message on Nextdoor from a lady saying she found the owner of Roxy driving around several miles away trying to find her!” he said.
The man was unable to leave his car due to mobility issues, so instead he was simply calling Roxy’s name from his car window. Thanks to the kind stranger, Roxy was reunited with her dad shortly after that.
“As soon as Roxy saw him her ears perked up and she ran to him and he had all the paperwork to show that he was the owner. And of course he had tons of pictures of her on his cellphone.”
Gasparik wants to stress how important it is to register your chip:
“I could have returned Roxy two hours after I found her if Ed would have known to register his chip. It could have been just that simple.”
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After their quality bonding time together, Gasparik says he plans to stay in touch with Roxy and her owner and take her for walks.
Scroll below to take a look at the Good Samaritan’s interview.
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