Last Friday night, Jason Gasparik was driving home from a friend’s house in Charlotte, North Carolina when he saw a black dog running in circles in the road, confused and scared. “I noticed a vehicle stopped on the road and someone was running around in the grass median,” Gasparik said.
Gasparik decided to join in on the chase, but the 70-pound chocolate lab was too nervous to come over to him. Soon, a driver and a police officer stopped to help Gasparik and the dog, but nobody could get her into the car. Gasparik even tempted the dog with treats, but the pup refused and ran away.
After chasing for about an hour, he figured out a way to get the dog to come to him: “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, laid down, and I was able to grab her neck scruff.”
Gasparik took the dog to a 24-hour vet clinic to check if she had a microchip. She had one, but the ID number wasn’t registered with an owner. Gasparik was sad, but he decided to help Roxy the dog find her owner. He posted about the lost dog on Facebook and used PawBoost, a service that helps expand the reach of Facebook posts.
The next morning, he decided to try and look for the dog’s owner the old-fashioned way. It would just take a little extra work. Gasparik made a sign with an old moving box and a tiki torch pole and headed out to a busy street corner, where he found Roxy.
Some people would ignore him, thinking he was some scammer just looking for money or something. But Gasparik didn’t back down; instead, he tried to attract even more attention by smiling at people and waving. He hoped that someone would recognize Roxy and could point him to any information.
On Sunday, he and Roxy hit the streets again with the trusty homemade sign. Thankfully, he didn’t have to stand outside for long. A woman realized Roxy and contacted Gasparik with Ed, Roxy’s owner, to meet.
“As soon as we got near Ed’s truck, Ed shouted ‘Roxy Girl,’ and she was immediately wagging her tail and recognized Ed,” he said. “Roxy was happy to find Ed again.”
Gasparik checked all of Ed’s paperwork and made sure he was Roxy’s dad. Gasparik is happy that Roxy is reunited with her dad and it was a perfect ending to a very busy weekend.
