Bus Driver Saves Stolen Dog Walking In The Road With A Suspicious Man

Moral of this story is to always trust your intuition. One bus driver did, and he ended up saving a stolen dog.

Bus driver Mike Thomas was driving his normal route into downtown Portland, when he noticed something ahead in the middle of the road. He slowed down in order to get a better look, and noticed a man and dog.

“I noticed there was a guy in the middle of the road with a dog. And he had the dog by the collar and was leading it across the street. It is not a place where you would normally cross, and he didn’t have a leash,” Mike said.

Not only that, but the man was dressed in pajama bottoms – something that raised a red flag with the bus driver.

“The situation did not seem right to me, so of course I stopped,” he added.

After he pulled over, Mike opened the doors and let them board the bus, even though dogs aren’t normally allowed on.

“Letting him on was the safest thing to do at the time in the situation we were in,” he said.

At one point, the man began chatting to a female passenger, offering her the dog. That is when Mike knew he’d don’t the right thing by stopping.

Having his suspicions raised, Mike asked the man what the dog’s name was several times – and each time the man gave a different name. Of course, none of them were correct. The dog was wearing a collar with a name tag on it, and Mike had seen it when the dog ran to the front of the bus to retrieve a ball.

Mike’s gut instinct was right that something was off, so he was determined to help the dog. When they reached the downtown area, Mike informed the man that he was keeping the dog and returning him to his owners. The man got off the bus while Mike had a hold of the dog’s collar.

As it turns out, the dog’s name is Cooper. Passengers on the bus comforted Cooper until Transit Police were able to pick him up. It turns out that Cooper’s owners were out of town, while their son was watching him. However, late one night he called, frantic because he said Cooper was missing.

Jane Murphy, Cooper’s owner, noticed a voicemail from the Transit Police saying they located Cooper and he was safe on a TriMet bus. Cooper was later reunited with his family just after midnight.

They’re not sure how Cooper escaped their backyard, but they were relieved that he was found.

The family was beyond grateful to Mike and his actions that they wanted to meet him in person to thank him. They gifted him a picture of Cooper, along with a note which read, “Thank you for bringing me back home to my family.”

Jane said, “Just brings great pride that there are some very good people in this world who are willing to go out that extra mile for our four-legged animals.”

Watch the entire story in the video below: