Man Wakes Up And Finds A Stray Dog in His Living Room
When you have a 1-month-old baby in the house, 4 a.m. wake-ups are a usual occurrence. However, Jack Jokinen didn’t expect his wife to shake him awake, saying that there was a dog in their house.
“I was sleeping, and my wife suddenly woke me up and said, ‘The baby’s OK … but there’s a puppy in our house,’” Jokinen recalls. “Obviously, I was very confused.”
Jokinen rushed down the stairs and quickly found a small lab mix in his living room. Having a stray dog in the house made him wonder how she got there, but after realizing that all the windows and doors were tightly shut, it became a total mystery.
“The first thing I think is, ‘There has to be someone in our house,’” Jokinen says. “So I do a security sweep, making sure there’s no one hiding in closets or anything like that. And when I finish, I think, ‘How did this happen? A magical puppy?’”
He reviewed the security camera footage and saw himself returning from a walk with his 2-year-old dog, George, the night before. They came inside, and Jokinen closed the front door, but it didn’t latch. That allowed the door to blow wide open when strong winds struck later that night.
“Then at 3:16, on the camera, we can see the dog, whom we’ve named Suzy, coming down the street. She stops outside our house,” Jokinen said. “She was out in the rain and cold, and she kind of hesitated before going into the house.”
Here is Suzy going up the stairs.
About 30 minutes later, a man passed by the house and noticed the door was open. He took a look inside to see if everything was all right and closed the door. That was probably the reason why Suzy stayed the night: “He didn’t know there was a dog in the house that wasn’t ours.”
This is a video from that night.
Jokinen and his wife dried the dog and did their best to make her comfortable. They considered calling animal control but changed their minds because they assumed that the dog would not benefit from entering the system: "She was emaciated, her teeth were in poor condition, and she was only walking on three legs with no collar," Jokinen said. "We thought, 'If we just drop this dog off, who knows what will happen?'"
They decided to take Suzy to the vet, where they discovered, much to their surprise, that this "puppy" was, in fact, about nine years old. Suzy had dental issues, a paw infection, and was covered with fleas and ticks. Nevertheless, the couple agreed to keep her.
"We decided that of all the bad things that could happen by leaving your door open in the middle of winter in a major city, ending up with a sweet dog who has come off the street ... We have to at least give this a try," Jokinen says.
Jokinen posted Suzy's photo, and it quickly went viral. The family received $15,000 in donations to help cover the senior dog's medical expenses.
He was even able to find the man who thoughtfully closed his door that night.
Suzy is happy now.
Now, Suzy is warm, well-fed, and safe. She has finally found a home.
"We're able to do all this in large part thanks to the generosity of the internet," Jokinen says. "In a way, this isn't our dog — it's the internet's dog."
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