After his automobile was stolen, an Alabama man was reunited with his four-legged best buddy.
On August 28, Cullman County resident Phillip Lewis was held at gunpoint at a Chevron petrol station near Dodge City.
In a phone interview with Fox News Digital, Lewis described how the group of robbers, which included a lady, forced him to hand over his keys before driving off in his car.
“She said, ‘I’m not playing,’ and pointed the gun at my head,” he said, referencing the individual he interacted with during the incident. “And at that point, I handed her the keys.”
Lewis saw that his five-year-old Shih Tzu-poodle mix named Little Dude was still in the car as the criminals started to disperse.
“So, I screamed, ‘Wait! Let me get my dog!’” he said. “But she took off.”
“She had the jump on me, so I feel like there’s not much I could’ve done.”
Lewis quickly posted about the event on Facebook and pleaded with other people to keep a watch out for Little Dude.
Additionally, he got the help of the animal rescue groups Two by Two Rescue and Croonin’ for Critters, which contributed to the $2,000 bounty for the dog’s safe return.
Two weeks later, on September 11, 2022, Lewis learned from an unnamed source that a neighbor had brought home a dog resembling Little Dude just a few days earlier.
“I was 99% sure it was my dog,” he said.
The Cullman County and Jefferson County Sheriff’s Departments joined forces to find the puppy and reunite him with Lewis after Lewis provided the information to investigators.
“My initial thought was the robber probably liked him and wanted to keep him,” he laughed. “He is a super sweet dog.”
The Alabama-born pair were eventually reunited thanks to the enormous “power of social media,” which Lewis claimed would not have happened without all the “additional eyes” on the case.
Little Dude was “so excited” to be home at last, according to Lewis, who rejoiced in his return.
“His little tail was just a-waggin’,” he said.
“He saw his other adopted brother — I have another dog named Jack Jack — and they played and played and played.”
When Little Dude was a young puppy, Lewis had to save him since the animal had wandered onto his land without any indication that it had ever belonged to anybody else.
“He was in a really bad way,” he said. “He was all matted up.”
Lewis claimed that he and Little Dude had been “best buddies ever since” after bringing the puppy back to health.
He claimed, “God sent him to me that day”.
“He stole my heart the day we met.”
Lewis, who has adult-onset asthma, claimed that Little Dude once saved his life.
“There was one evening before I was diagnosed that I hyperventilated and passed out — and he licked me until I was able to wake up and call for help,” he said.
Lewis, who is presently enrolled in Wallace State Community College’s mechatronics program, stated that he intends to “carry on living life” with his “little adventure buddy.”
Lewis said he hopes “the investigators can track down who did this and get them off the street before they do it again,” he said.
SOURCE: FOX NEWS
