As I walk or bike through my neighborhood, one of the saddest things I often see is a flyer stuck to a telephone pole or electric pole, telling about a lost dog.
We have a couple of little dogs, Lilly and Fenway. They’re both Yorkies. And believe me, they are family. I can’t imagine the stress and anxiety and sadness if we suddenly discovered one of them were missing.
So that’s what I think about when I see one of those flyers. Some family, in a neighborhood near to where I live, is living with the fact that they don’t know where their dog is. Or where their cat is. And they don’t know if their family pet will ever come home again.
So I think we can all agree, losing a dog is traumatic.
But what if your dog didn’t just escape and get lost…
What if your dog was actually stolen?
That’s what Barbie suspected when her dog, Scooby, went missing.
Scooby comes home:
If your dog gets away:
- Drive slowly around the neighborhood. Your dog might hear and recognize the sound of your car or your voice, and might be close by.
- Put a sign in your yard. Include a photo of your pet, along with your phone number. The sign will be seen by pizza deliveries, the mail carrier, and the kids in the neighborhood.
- Leave unwashed clothing outside, near your house.
- Hang flyers around the neighborhood and go door to door to let everyone know. Also, post online in local groups such as Next Door.
- Visit local shelters regularly. Don’t just call – go there in person.
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Episode transcript (download transcript PDF)
As I walk or bike through my neighborhood, one of the saddest things I often see is a flier stuck to a telephone pole or electric pole, telling about a lost dog.
We have a couple of little dogs, Lilly and Fenway. They’re both Yorkies. And believe me, they are family. I can’t imagine the stress and anxiety and sadness if we suddenly discovered one of them was missing.
So that’s what I think about when I see one of those flyers. Some family, in a neighborhood near to where I live, is living with the fact that they don’t know where their dog is. Or where their cat is. And they don’t know if their family pet will ever come home again.
So I think we can all agree, losing a dog is traumatic.
But what if your dog didn’t just escape and get lost…
What if your dog was actually stolen?
That’s what Barbie suspected when her dog, Scooby, went missing.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Scott
Have you always been a dog lover?
Barbie
I have always loved dogs; and all kinds of critters, but mostly dogs.
Scott
There’s people that are cat people and people that are dog people and some that are both, but I’m kind of like you. I’m a dog person. All animals are great though. So how did you end up getting Scooby?
Barbie
Well back in November 2005, my husband and 2 small children and I, the mommy, moved to Orlando. When you have Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse as your neighbors, what could go wrong right? We moved into a beautiful home in Orlando, and all our neighbors had dogs. They were so cute, and were all different sizes. My kids and I would see them and always melt and say, “Oh we want to take them home.” My husband would always say no. I understand why he said no; when he was younger, about a teenager, he was on his way to school and a big dog got out of a neighbors yard and chased him down and bit him. So I understand why he didn’t want any pets.
Scott
That’s understandable, yeah.
Barbie
Yeah, he was afraid of all kinds of pets. We used to go to visit his father in South Carolina 4 or 5 times a year, and they would come visit us. My father-in-law used to breed toy poodles and they are so adorable. Everytime we went up the first 2 years– of course it was in between the breeding so we never saw the puppies. One time it was our turn to visit again in 2007 and we went in there and “Surprise!” Tiny itty-bitty furballs. One stuck out like a sore thumb, dark chocolate little furball. It even caught my husband’s attention. When he would hold him he’d say, “Aw he’s so cute.” About 5 minutes after him holding this little furball he looked at me and said, “Would you and the girls still like a dog?” At the same time we all yelled, “Yes!”
Scott
That’s a dumb question. Right?
Barbie
Yeah, we were not going to even let him finish that question. We said, “Yes, let’s take him now!” But he was too small, the puppies were born August 24, 2007, so he wasn’t even a month old so we couldn’t take him at that time. My father-in-law always told me I could have the pick of the litter, and it didn’t matter which one. The one we liked was the runt. My father-in-law told me after all the puppies he’s seen born he was the only deep dark chocolate toy poodle with the longest tail. He could have been a show dog. We never did that to him though. My husband said to us, “Do you want to take him?” We said, “Yes!” He said, “Under one condition,” I thought oh no, here we go, he’s going to make sure we agree to take care of it and keep it away from him. He said, “I get to name him.” I thought, “Ok.” He’s Spanish so I thought– he likes to play jokes on me, so I thought he was going to name it something I can’t even pronounce. I said, “Ok, name him.” He goes, “Scooby.” We all thought he was joking but we weren’t going to say anything because we thought, “He can name him Scooby if we get to take him home.” So we said, “Yes, deal.” So we were going to take him home and we made arrangements with my father-in-law to come back a month later in October when Scooby would be old enough to take home. About a week before we were going to go pick him up, my father-in-law came knocking on the door, but he looked sad and upset. I said, “What’s the matter?” He said, “I sold your dog by mistake. But I still have one dog left in the basket in the car.” We were very disappointed, we had our minds set on Scooby, you know? I said, “Ok, we’ll take him.” So he went to get the basket out of the car, put it in my hands, opened up the lid and guess who popped out? Scooby! What a joker he was!
Scott
What a joker.
Barbie
I forgot, I have a family where both sides are full of comedians and jokers.
Scott
That’s a funny joke though. You’ve got to admit.
Barbie
Yeah, after we got Scooby it was ok, he was forgiven.
Scott
I saw some of the pictures that you had of Scooby and he seems to change colors. Do you know why that happened?
Barbie
Well, it seemed kind of weird. Everytime we gave him his haircut, and he was so proud after each haircut, he would prance around proud like a peacock. Everytime we gave him a haircut he got lighter and lighter and lighter. We still loved him, the dark chocolate sold us on him but it was him and his personality that kept us loving him.
Scott
Tell us about what happened on that day. You had mentioned when we were speaking before, that he was always so quiet you didn’t even always know that he was around. That was part of the reason he was missing for a while before you noticed. What happened there?
Barbie
About a week before that day happened I was scheduled to go into major surgery. So my mind was elsewhere anyway, but he usually never favored any of us so he would just take turns with whoever he slept with. Different beds with different children or us, he just never had any favorites. He wasn’t in my bed so I assumed he was with the kids, and I went to work that morning. I was at work and my husband called me saying, “Where’s Scooby?” I said, “What do you mean he’s home and I’m at work. Don’t say this jokingly, I’m at work.” He said, “I’m not kidding. Scooby’s not here.” So I said, “I’ll be home as soon as I can.” I went in to see my boss and said, “I have to go home, my dog is missing.” They let me go so I went home. My husband was in his office and he called me to come in. We had a security camera, and I never thought about looking at it because Scooby had escaped 4 or 5 times in the 4 years we had him.
Scott
So he was 4 years old now?
Barbie
He was 4 years old, yes. I never thought to look at the cameras to see how he escaped. Well, my husband saw the cameras that day and he saw what happened; how Scooby escaped. He would end up on the front porch and we would wonder, “How did he escape the privacy fence?” It was 6 feet tall so we knew he didn’t climb it, and there were no holes so we didn’t know how he got out. Well, when the wind blew a certain amount it would blow up one of the boards. Scooby is so smart and he knew that, so he would dash right underneath it while it was lifted and that’s how he would escape. He usually went to the front door and whined and he’d look at us so sad and we’d say, “Well come in the house!”
This fateful day he never came home. So my husband looked at the video completely that day; and that late afternoon we saw a car stop in front of the house. A guy gets out, opens the back door, and it looks like he’s calling somebody to his car. We saw Scooby enter the camera’s range, in the front yard, and he’s going to the man. I realized, “He’s trying to get my dog.” Scooby ran down and out, away from him, and down the street out of camera range. Then the car took off in the same direction Scooby went.
Scott
So you’re watching that on the camera?
Barbie
Yes.
Scott
You didn’t realize that that’s the last time you would see him?
Barbie
No, I thought, “We can get him.” My husband Marcos did tell me that while he was waiting for me to come home and he saw this, he went in his car with my daughter– who was only 18 months at the time. She was born 2 years after we got Scooby, I gave birth to a beautiful no-verbal autistic daughter, and they were so close. At first Scooby was jealous and would growl at her like,”You’re taking my spot!” but then they got really close. So when my husband saw the video, he looked at the car and the picture was clear so he could see the make of the car, but we couldn’t see the license plate. So he got in his car and drove around the neighborhood to see if he could spot the car. He saw the car in a driveway right around the corner from us behind our backyard, 3 houses away. He took pictures of the car and came back home. At this time I came in the door from work and said, “What are we gonna do? We need to call the police. If they have my dog I want my dog back.” Right now in my mind I’m not even thinking about my surgery, I’m thinking about getting my dog back. My husband said, “No, what if this man retaliates against our family when we call?” I said, “Yeah you’re right, what are we going to do?”
Scott
You really don’t have any proof anyway, right?
Barbie
No I don’t. Just because there was an open car, it looked like he could’ve taken Scooby, but then he could say, “No, the dog went away, it was just a stray dog. Then I went home.” There was no proof at this time.
Scott
Or he could say there are other cars that look like that too?
Barbie
That’s true. My husband says, “I can make up a bunch of flyers and we can go around the neighborhood and hand them out.” I said, “Yeah that’s a good idea! We’ll knock on neighbors doors, hand out flyers and then we’ll go to his door and knock on the door like we don’t know who he is. Then hand him a flyer too.”
Scott
That sounds like a good plan.
Barbie
Yeah I thought it was a great plan. Then I thought if I heard Scooby I could say, “That’s my dog, give him back right now.” My husband made a generic flier with Scooby’s picture and name and it had our address and phone number and said, “If you see this dog, call this number.” So we put my daughter in the stroller and started going. Every pole I saw, the stop sign, the light poles, the telephone poles; we hung up fliers of Scooby. It’s a single family neighborhood so every house we came to we knocked on the door, handed them a flier and the people would thank us and said they would call us. If nobody was home we would stick a flier on their door so they would see it. We got 2 doors from where my husband saw the car and I knocked on the door and 3 or 4 kids came running out. They looked like elementary school age so I don’t know why they weren’t in school, but I didn’t question it and I handed them a flier and said, “Did you see my dog?” They all got excited and said, “Yeah the man that lives in that house 2 doors down, he was chasing your dog and he caught him.” I said, “Are you sure?” They said, “Yes!” I looked at my husband and I said, “I think we can go get my dog.” So we skipped the house in between and went right where we thought my dog was.
Scott
Was that the house where that car was parked before?
Barbie
That’s where the car was when my husband took the picture. The car was gone when we got there.
Scott
Oh. So you’ve got two different pieces of evidence that point to the people in that house.
Barbie
So then we go there, I knock on the door and my husband stays back with my daughter in the stroller. A lady answered, I guessed his wife, and before she could say anything I handed her a flier and said, “Have you seen my dog? He’s been missing since yesterday and we’re looking for him. The neighbor kids said they saw him in the neighborhood running around. Have you seen him?” Then she looked and said, “No I haven’t.” So I said, “Well the kids said your husband caught him.” She goes, “No. That’s right, the dog was there but he couldn’t catch him, the dog was too fast.” In the meantime, the door was open so I was listening for my dog, and I couldn’t hear him. Usually when he hears us or hears my voice, he cries. He’s like a big baby, he cries, he’s so happy. Always as a puppy, if I was gone he would cry. Even if it was just 5 minutes he’d jump in my lap and cry. I didn’t hear him cry, so I gave her the flier and I said, “Please call me if you see him.” Then I don’t know why I told her, I said, “I’m going into major surgery in a couple days and I just want my dog home, he’s part of the family.” She said, “I’ll call you if we hear anything.”
Scott
So you kind of knew that she was not being completely truthful with you?
Barbie
Absolutely. You could tell she was feeling bad, but she wasn’t going to tell me anything.
Scott
It seems like she was kind of in an awkward position, she either had to be nice to you, someone she doesn’t know, or she had to betray her husband, if he really still had your dog. That’s a tough spot.
Barbie
Yes, very tough. I wasn’t mad at her, that’s why I kept my calm and I cried and I told her the story. I thought I could appeal from one mother to another, because she had a couple little kids running around. Little kids, probably 2 years old and maybe still in diapers. She said, “I will call you if I see your dog.” I said, “Thank you.” From there we went and knocked on doors on the way back home and handed out more fliers. The kids were still in school at this time. I have to tell you my husband was very good to me, he said, “What do you want to do next?” I said, “I want to go to different stores and hang up these fliers. I still want to look around. I want to go to his vet. Maybe someone handed him in, we just don’t know.”
Scott
Yeah, you want to feel like you’re taking action and doing something right? You can’t just stay home and hope he comes back, that would feel kind of useless.
Barbie
I wouldn’t do that to my daughters, why would I do that to my dog who’s part of the family? So we went home, my husband made a bunch more fliers, and then we went to the shopping store around the corner and hung up fliers with their permission. Scooby’s vet wasn’t that far from our home, not even a mile away, so on the way we stopped a lot to hang up fliers on the poles. We talked to the vet and told her what happened, she was upset for us too. She let us put the flier up in her waiting room. My husband stayed in the car with the baby while I did all this running around to make it easier. Then we went to the animal shelter and they were so very nice. I explained what happened and they let me hang up the flier on their wall of missing critters. They let me go back into any place they had animals, they even let me go see if Scooby was in their hospital. They showed me the book of all the dead animals they find and have to record. Scooby wasn’t there.
Scott
That was very nice of them to accommodate you that way though.
Barbie
Yes, they were very good people. You could tell they cared for the animals there, it wasn’t just a job for the money. I went back and told my husband and we headed home. On the way home I noticed one of our neighbors out. She’s not a very nice neighbor; she was always what you’d call the troublemaker of the block. But I told my husband, “Please pull over, I need to speak with her!” because she knew everybody and everything. I took a flier and handed it to her and she listened and said, “I’ll call you if I know anything.” I said, “Thank you so much, I appreciate this.” By then the kids were home from school and we had to go home and break the news to Becky and Brandy. They were devastated. We said, “We’re not going to give up. Scooby’s going to come home, we know he’s going to come home and we’re just going to keep looking for him.” That calmed them down a little bit. That night when it started to get dark, around [5:30] or 6, my husband got a call on his cell phone, which was the number we put on the fliers for Scooby. A man with a really bad accent– my husband like I said is Spanish so he didn’t understand this accent. So he handed me the phone and he was getting upset and I said, “No it’s about Scooby let me handle this.” The man told me, “I found your dog on my way to work. His name was Scooby right?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “I can wait for a little bit, but you need to come here. I’m at a church yard where you can come pick up Scooby.” I said, “Yes! Ok directions, give me directions.” He gave me directions 10 miles away from my house. Orlando is not a very safe place, they have bad neighborhoods. So I wrote the directions down and told my husband what happened and he said, “I’m going to stay here with the kids, it’s not safe you shouldn’t go.” I said, “I’m going to call one of your cousins.” She’s a wonderful cousin. I called her and she dropped everything, came to get me and drove me to where the directions took us. It was at a church. We go into the church and it’s deserted. There’s nobody there. The lights were on because it was getting really dark now, and we’re yelling for Scooby. We didn’t even hear dogs, it was on a main busy street. It was kind of scary but I wasn’t thinking about being scared, I was only thinking about Scooby. There was a neighborhood behind the church so we rode around the neighborhood and tried to listen for any dogs barking and I was yelling, “Scooby, Scooby!” We did that for about an hour and there was nothing. So she took me home, and I told my husband and kids. I said, “Don’t give up! Scooby’s going to come home.”
Scott
That’s almost even worse to think that somebody called you and said, “I have Scooby” and get your hopes up. Then nothing.
Barbie
Well here’s worse. Something worse happened. The next morning, that troublemaker lady called me and said, “Well did you get your dog back?” I said, “No, he wasn’t there.” She said, “What do you mean? He gave you directions?” Now how would she know this? I stayed calm and I said, “No, he gave me directions for a church 10 miles away.” She sounded very annoyed and she said, “No it was the church around the corner from us.” So I said, “Oh.” Then I hung up. I took my baby– we were home alone at this time, everybody was at work or school, it was just me and Marianna. So I took the car and the stroller and we went to this church. They were remodeling at the time, so there were about 3 or 4 guys fixing up the church. I had fliers in my car, so I handed them one and said, “Have you seen this dog? I was told he was in here.” They said, “No we didn’t.” You could tell they felt bad. They said, “If we see him we’ll call, but you can look around in the meantime.” They let me in the church, they let me all through the– they were really nice people. No Scooby. There was a neighborhood behind it too, which was like 3 neighborhoods away from mine. I put Marianna back in the car and rolled all the windows down and drove 1 to 2 miles per hour through this neighborhood yelling for Scooby and listening. Nothing. We finally went home about an hour or 2 later.
Scott
At this point it seems like you have exhausted everything you can do. What do you do next?
Barbie
We called family and friends to let them know and keep an ear out and so they could let their friends and family know. We weren’t giving up. The animal shelter said I could come back anytime and just go in the back room and look for Scooby. I did that. Every week the kids would go to school and I would go twice a week. Then I would do it once a week. Then I would do it once a month. I never gave up, I prayed. I’m a Christian, I prayed and I had a voice come over me and say, “Don’t worry, he’s coming home.” This was about a week after my surgery, I had to go through my surgery I couldn’t cancel. A few days after all this happened I had to go through my surgery, which of course, was successful because you’re talking to me.
Scott
That just seems like so much more stress. When you’re going into surgery, you don’t want to have all this other stuff on your mind.
Barbie
And when you have a handicapped child that needs to be taken care of and one almost teenager and one teenage daughter. All those mothers and fathers out there know what I’m saying; and then your dog is missing. It’s the worst.
Scott
Barbie has a daughter named Brandy; and of course she was always looking for Scooby even when she was at school.
Brandy
I was in middle school around that time, maybe 6th or 7th grade. Every afternoon I would have a PE class and we would go around the track. As I was running around the track I would call Scooby and my friend, he happens to share the same class that I have. He and I were running the track together, he goes, “Hey why are you calling for your dog?” I said, “Well my dog is missing. He was stolen, we’re trying to get him back.” He looked at me and said, “Oh. I think I’ve seen a dog running around here.” I said, “You’re kidding! Well what did he look like? Is he a big dog or a small dog?” He said, “It was a small dog.” I said, “What color is it?” He said, “I think it was a brown color. It was like a dark brown.” I said, “That’s my dog!” He said, “Well I’ve seen him running around here.” I said, “Can you please see if you can find him again?” Three or four days later he came up to me looking so sad. He handed me a piece of paper with a cute drawing of a dog and walked away. I opened up that piece of paper and it said, “I’m so sorry. I tried looking for your dog and I couldn’t find it. I’m just too ashamed to tell you in person.” I said, “Well you really did try and that meant a lot.”
Scott
At this point, Scooby has been gone for 2 years and Barbie is still clinging to the hope that she’ll find him.
Barbie
So 2 years have gone by; Scooby is 6 years old at that time. I still had not given up. I heard that voice tell me he was going to come home. Every morning I would on purpose walk my kids to school, at least to the middle school because we could hear all the dogs. We’d say, “Wouldn’t it be funny if Scooby was behind us?” I never changed the color of the house, I kept everything the same. I never even got a new car because I wanted Scooby to know that was his home and be able to find it easily. No Scooby. We just couldn’t find him. We just kept saying that, every time we would go to school 5 days a week, the kids were very healthy so they almost never had to stay home from school. I was friendly with the mail lady. She would drop off the mail and I would wave. I’m friendly with everybody, and my mother doesn’t know how I talk to strangers. She says, “How do you do that like you know them?” So the mail lady would wave back. She knew about Scooby, sometimes I would have him in my arms to go pick up the mail. One day, after Scooby had been gone for 2 years already, she said, “How are you doing?” Somehow we got to talking about how Scooby was stolen. I just thought I’d tell my story to her and that would be it; she would go off and she could care less. She said, “Do you still have a flier?” I looked at her and said, “Yeah! Hold on, I’ll go run inside and get it.” I gave her the flier and she goes, “I do my routes in this area. Everywhere I go on my route I will keep an eye out for your dog. I promise you.” I said, “Thank you so much.” I didn’t really think much of it.
Scott
That was very nice of her. She must be an animal lover herself.
Barbie
She is. She had, not little dogs but big dogs. Every once and a while she would ask, “Did Scooby come back home yet?” I would say, “No. But I know he is, I know he’s coming home.” She said, “Well I’ll keep looking. I don’t want you to think I haven’t been looking, I have.” That would go on for 2 years.
Scott
So she kept the flier in her mail truck.
Barbie
Yes, in fact I could see where she kept it, she taped it in her mail truck. So every time I would see the mail lady– I wish I could remember her name, she was the sweetest woman. I would go run out and say hi and thank her for the mail; she still had the flier, and this was 2 years later that I still noticed the flier. I said, “Thank you for keeping Scooby near you.” She said, “I would never hide Scooby. I told you I’m going to find him, and keep looking for him and I will never stop.” I thanked her.
On January 14, 2016 I had to go to the store for some milk. I asked my husband if he could watch the baby while I went out to get milk. He said,”Yeah but hurry up home” because he didn’t like to change diapers (laughter) and she was getting a little old for him to be changing her diaper. So I said, “Ok, I’ll make sure she’s clean before I go.” I hopped in the car and headed out. All I needed was milk, that’s all I went out for. No sooner had I gotten to the parking lot, and hadn’t even turned off my car, and I got a call from my husband. He said, “What are you doing?” I said, “I’m going to get milk, I told you.” He said, “Well when are you going to come home?” I said, “After I get milk, that’s all I need. The store’s a little busy but I don’t think the lines are bad because they move fast here.” He says, “Ok, hurry up.” I thought that was weird. I go into the store and get my milk and it takes a little bit of time because there are some people there with full baskets of stuff. I got in my car and started going home. I turned into our development and I was maybe 3 minutes from home and I got a call from my husband Marcos again. He said, “Where are you?” and I said, “I’m almost home, I’m just about to the door.” He said, “Hurry up, just get home!” I said, “What’s wrong with Marianna?!” He assured me, “No, she’s fine, everyone is fine, just come home.” I pull into the driveway, park and grab my milk. When I get to the front door, I see this really dirty little dog with lots of fuzzy hair running at me. I knew right away it was my Scooby, he came home! I said, “You remember me!” He made his famous whine and cry. He was just so happy to see me.
Scott
Yeah I saw in the video where you were holding the gallon of milk and you set it on the floor– and for anybody listening we will have the video of this on the website for this episode. So obviously the best reuniting ever. What happened? How did Scooby come home?
Barbie
Well I asked my husband that, and he said, “I got a call from the mail lady, and she said, ‘Come get your dog. I have your dog, it was not even a mile down the street.’ I went to get the dog and that was it.” He said, “She was outside the mail truck holding Scooby for me so that I could take him home.” I said, “Oh that’s so sweet.” Well come to find out a couple days later when I hugged the mail lady and told her thank you, she told me the true story. She did call my husband and said, “Come get your dog, I can’t stay here long and I can’t bring him to you because I could get fired if I put him in my mail truck.” He said, “Ok let me get dressed and do this and that.” She said, “No, come get here now, I’m not wanting to get fired, I have your dog.” So my husband got there, not even a mile down the street, and she said my husband looked at him and said, “That’s not my dog.” and started walking away. She said, “Oh this is Scooby, you better get here and get your dog and take him home.” Thank god she was frisky and feisty. She told me, “I was getting annoyed by this time. I knew that was Scooby. A bunch of kids were chasing after him.” A toy poodle, I don’t know if you understand, they need haircuts every 6 months or they grow a lot and you don’t know what kind of critter it is. It looks like Cousin It, or worse. You could tell, his neck was indented like there was a rope tied around his neck to keep him from escaping. He escaped somehow and the kids were trying to catch him. The mail lady saw that and yelled, “Scooby!’ and he looked up and ran, right to the mail lady. That’s when she called my husband and said, “That’s Scooby. Take him home.” So he took him home and that’s when he called me.
Scott
When did he finally figure out that, yes this is Scooby?
Barbie
They used to have a secret language going. He would make this funny language sound and Scooby would whine in excitement, all happy, it drove him crazy in a happy way. They would do that, that was their thing. So he thought, “I’m gonna do a test.” So he did that and Scooby went crazy.
Scott
I asked Barbie’s daughter Brandy about when she found out that Scooby was home.
Brandy
It was 2016, and I was in 7th grade at the time. I remember I was coming home and– I had an iPod but I didn’t have any data, I didn’t have a phone or any of that. So I would go by text. Well nobody texted me, everything seemed like a normal day. When I got to the front door, I heard my one dog Chica barking and thought, “Oh ok, she’s in back she’s ok.” So I open up the front door and I hear my mom calling from her bathroom, which is located in her bedroom, and I can’t see her at all but she’s calling for me. She’s going, “Brandy get in here! Brandy!” I’m thinking, “Oh my gosh, did she just slip and fall? What happened?” I closed the door and said, “Mom hold on, I’ll be there.” I was dropping my stuff off. I ran over to the bathroom and stopped at the door frame. I peeked in and all I could see was this ragged old dog. Just a pathetic looking dog; like a sad rat (laughter). It was so hard to explain how he looked. It was years of clay and dirt and all sorts of stuff on him. I fell to my knees and cried, I knew right away that it was Scooby. My mom all she did was just look at me. She just looked at me falling to my knees and I said, “Is that Scooby?” He started wagging his tail, he remembered me. When she was done giving him a shower she handed him to me; and this dog was excited and happy to see me.
Scott
In the video there’s another dog. Who was that?
Barbie
After Scooby left, I’d say about 2 years later. I felt really bad and my older daughter knew how I was feeling. She had a toy poodle called Sarah and she saw how devastated I was so she said, “Mommy have my dog” because she had 2 dogs. So she gave me Sarah and I never knew that she was sick. She was the best dog, she was such a good dog. She was black with a white star. I had her for about a year, maybe not even, and she died on us. I was so devastated, I cried and cried. My husband, I guess he didn’t want to hear me cry anymore, he looked in the paper and saw another doggy in a basket, a white toy poodle. He said, “Let’s go get her.” That’s where Chica comes along. Chica is Scooby’s wife to this day. They have a little daughter that lives with them. So it’s Chica, Scooby and Princess Leia.
Scott
And where is Scooby today? He’s living with Brandy.
Brandy
A couple years later I worked at a job, a few months later I was hit by a car. Orlando was starting to get really dangerous, and that was a breaking point for my mother. My mother said, “We’ve got to move.” So I lived with my sister when she moved into a new house. Around that time when she was moving to a new house, she was still in Orlando packing up and I said, “I want to take Scooby.” We had 2 other dogs, his son and the wife, or the girlfriend (laughter). So I said, “I want Scooby. I want to take him with me so that I can take him everywhere and bring him places.” While she was packing up I visited my sister’s house. I was already living there, so I visited my mom and asked, “Can we take Scooby?” So we took him and brought him back to where I lived, which is about an hour and forty-five minutes away.
Scott
Now back to Barbie to wrap this story up.
Barbie
So here’s the timeline of how it happened. In 2007 Scooby was born, 2011 Scooby was stolen, 2016 Scooby came home. I never gave up the faith. I kept knowing, knowing he was coming. Why would I hear a voice telling me, “He’s coming home” I didn’t know it was going to take 4 years. I kept telling people and they kept looking at me like, “No it’s been too long. He’ll never come home.” I showed them, Scooby showed them.
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You know, when you’ve got a story about a lost dog, there’s no better way for that story to end than to report that the dog is back home where they belong.
One thing I wanted to also mention is this. You might be wondering why Barbie would be okay with having Scooby go and live with Brandy. I did ask her about that. You might have heard her mention that one of her children has some disabilities and challenges, and Barbie really devotes most of her time and energy to handling that situation and everything that comes with it. She knew that Scooby would get more love and attention at Brandy’s place, so it was the best thing for everyone. And they visit regularly so it’s all good.
If you want to see the video of when Barbie first came home and was reunited with Scooby, and trust me – you do want to – you can see that on the website for this episode. I’ll also have some tips about what you should do if YOUR dog or cat ever goes missing. And there’s some photos of Scooby as well. All of that is at WhatWasThatLike.com/94.
And one more announcement – there’s a new Raw Audio episode available right now. Raw Audio number 19 was just released, and it’s available to anyone who supports the show at $5 a month. In this episode –
A woman is with her family on their boat, and she calls 911 because it’s sinking –
911 Dispatcher
Ok, what’s the description of your boat?
Woman
We’re taking on water, we’re sinking, we’re taking on water.
911 Dispatcher
Attention Maritime units. Hold on ma’am I’m going to try and get some officers out to you.
A man calls because he has just discovered his stepson’s girlfriend –
Man
My stepson, I think he might have murdered his girlfriend.
911 Dispatcher
He might have murdered his girlfriend?
Man
Yes. She’s upstairs. I looked for a pulse and I just found her.
And some bridge inspectors discover a huge crack in a major bridge –
Bridge Inspector
I am doing a bridge inspection here on the I-40 Mississippi River Bridge and we just just found a super critical finding that needs traffic shut down in both directions on I-40 Mississippi River Bridge.
So you can hear all of those calls, along with the stories that go with them, and you can also binge all 18 of the previous Raw Audio episodes. Not to mention all the new What Was That Like episodes come straight to you ad-free. You get all of that by signing up as a patron at What Was That Like.com/support.
And now, this week’s listener story from Brandon in Nashville.
Stay safe, and I’ll see you in two weeks.
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Brandon
Hi ya’ll, my name is Brandon. This is a story about how I had to defend someone else with a gun. My main job is a 911 dispatcher. You can imagine what kind of stress happens day to day with that. I also have a second job doing rideshare with companies like Uber and Lyft. I enjoy doing this most nights because it’s a huge contrast with my regular job. At 911, everyone is calling because something bad is happening to them. With rideshare, especially here where I am, most of the people are tourists. They’re just here to have a great time, and I can help them out along the way by taking them back to their hotel or AirBnB when they’ve had a little too much to drink; or just giving them tips about local sites and attractions, good food, etc. On the weekends, I like driving very late and I like going until after the bars close up here, which is around 3 a.m. During the night this happened, it was during the summer of 2019. I was pulling up to one of our many streets that have several bars on it, and was waiting for my passengers who were on the side of the road by a hot dog stand. There were about 15 or so people hanging out around the stand, outside one of the bars that had just closed. While sitting there, one person came over to my car and got in; we were waiting for his friend to get in as well. Luckily for me, and for you listening, I, like many other rideshare drivers, installed a dashcam on my car. The one I have, it records in front of the car for potential collisions and reckless drivers. It also has an interior camera that records everything going on inside the car along with sound. I’ll play the actual audio of what happened so you can get an idea of what happened. But keep in mind, because of the time of night and where this was and what was going on, there’s quite a bit of cussing at the end of this, and you’ll hear why.
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Brandon
Is that your address on the Lane?
Passenger
Yeah that’s me. Yeah Lane drive yeah. Ok. Jake! Jake!
(Gunshot is heard, woman yells)
Passenger
What the fuck?
Brandon
Hang on. Stay here.
Passenger
Jake! Get the fuck in here! Jake! Get in here now! Jake!
Brandon (in the distance)
Put the gun down now! Put the gun down!
Passenger
Jake! Get in here now! Get in the fucking car! Get in the fucking car! Get in the fucking car!
Brandon
Put the gun down!
Passenger
Jake what the fuck!?
Jake
I didn’t do shit bro.
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Brandon
So you heard the person there that was in my car. What was happening outside the car with the second passenger, his name was Jake, he was waiting for his order to be filled at the hot dog stand. Jake was smoking a cigarette while waiting, and some random guy went up to him and asked Jake to have a drag from his cigarette. Like anyone with half a brain, Jake declines since he has no idea who this person is. At this point the random guy grabs Jake’s cigarette, pulls it out of his mouth, throws it on the ground, pulls out a gun, and shoots it right next to Jake’s head. I wasn’t sure if he was just trying to scare Jake, or if he was actually trying to shoot him in the head, or what else had happened. I was afraid someone else might get shot. So after that I told the passenger who was in the car to stay put. I drew my gun, walked outside and ordered the guy with the gun to put his gun down. It was a little bit hard to hear, over all the yelling of the person inside the car; but if you listen in the background you can hear me. The suspect in this thought he was the only one with a gun, he was waving it around and cussing really loudly. When he saw that a gun was pointed at him, he quickly turned and ran off. I could’ve easily just sat there and not intervened at all, but I’m not that type of person. If there was a chance to help someone that needed help I was going to go ahead and jump in. Police were called to the scene and a report was made, but from what I know the suspect in this was never found. I’m just glad that I happened to be there to run him off before he could hurt one of those other people standing around, wanting to wash down their booze with some hot dogs. If you want to hear more about that incident, or want to hear much more about my other job as a 911 dispatcher, feel free to check out my podcast as well. It’s called Music City 911. Where I play real 911 calls, and go over the details about the crimes. It’s available to listen to on your favorite podcast app.