This man became an internet sensation after he spent three hours holding up a sign for a lost dog he found in traffic, only to return it to its rightful owner.
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
A 40-year-old Jason Gasparik saw Roxy, the chocolate Labrador, as he was driving back to his home in Charlotte, North Carolina, the night before. The dog was so nervous that Gasparik and other good Samaritans had to spend an hour calming her down enough to get her into his car.
Once he brought her home, he shared pictures of her online and on sites for lost pets, but to no avail. He then took her to a 24-hour veterinary office to see if she was microchipped, but this effort did not help him find the dog’s owner.
Then, Gasparik took a piece of cardboard and a magic marker and made a sign. “Saturday morning I was sitting there with her thinking ‘what else could I do?’” Gasparik said. “So like a total dork, I made my sign and went to stand out on the sidewalk with her.”
He stood on the corner of a local intersection with a sign reading “Do you know this lost dog????” for three hours. He received a lot of attention from passersby, but when a photographer snapped a photo of him with the sign and posted it to social media, his phone was flooded with messages.
Unknown to Gasparik, a man named Ed was anxiously driving across town with the windows down, calling Roxy’s name in hopes of finding his dog. But because of his back problems, he could not walk well. After Roxy had gone missing from his home, he had to search for her from the driver’s seat of his car.
By coincidence, as Ed saw a woman walking her dog on the sidewalk, he asked her if she had seen Roxy.
The woman had seen Gasparik’s social media posts and pulled out a picture of Roxy to confirm that Ed was the owner. She quickly sent a message to Gasparik to let him know she had found Roxy’s owner.
— Meilin Tompkins (@MeilinTompkins) March 3, 2019
Soon, Gasparik met Ed in a parking lot and handed over a delighted Roxy to him. “As soon as Roxy saw him, her ears perked up, and she ran to him. Ed had all the paperwork to show that he was the owner,” said Gasparik. “And of course, he had tons of pictures of her on his cellphone.”
Gasparik hopes to stay in touch with Ed so he can volunteer to walk Roxy due to Ed’s back problems.
He also says that thanks to his social media posts with Roxy, many women have asked him out on dates, but he is waiting for the internet frenzy around the dog to die down before deciding what to do in his personal life.
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