Bus Driver Freezes As She Notices Two Missing Dogs Before Rescuing Them

Oct 28, 2020

While Christmas is the most joyous time of year, it is also stressful. As people hurry about visiting friends and family, shopping, and wrapping presents, they often overlook opportunities to do good deeds.

Jamie Grabowski, a bus driver in Milwaukee, took advantage of the chance to help a family in need in their search for their beloved pets when she noticed two dogs out in the freezing night after her route in 2019.

On December 18th, 2019, Jamie Grabowski, a bus driver for the Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS), was just finishing up her shift when she noticed two dogs darting in and out of the road. It was around midnight and Jamie was driving the empty bus back to the transit company’s garage.

Fearful that the playful pups might get hit by a car on a freezing night, Jamie stopped the bus and began calling to the dogs. She got out and guided them aboard, reports the MCTS website.

In a video from the bus’s camera, the dogs, a pit bull, and a doberman, can be seen sweetly inspecting the interior of Jamie’s bus before settling down in the back aisle. Despite coming from breeds that are often misunderstood as violent, the two big guys were on their best behavior, a clear indication to Jamie that they were someone’s pets who had gotten out during the night.

“Hey, you two! You need to go home right now,” Jamie says in a surveillance video captured on the bus. “C’mon, c’mon inside!"

Those who are curious can watch more of the video below, but it suffices to say that Jamie saved the day.

As the two sweet friends took a nap from their nighttime excursion, Jamie contacted a dispatcher with the MCTS, who sent a police officer out to help her with the dogs. Milwaukee police officers helped the Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission get the dogs to a shelter for the rest of the night.

Animal control was later able to reunite the dogs with their owners, who had been frantically searching for their beloved pets for hours before they were picked up by Jamie. Kindhearted Jamie was later told that she had found the dogs about 2.5 miles from their home, according to the same posting by the MCTS.

Jamie’s compassion was heralded by the MCTS on their official Twitter page when the agency posted photos of Jamie with the pups and their grateful owners. The Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission also shared Jamie’s story on their Facebook page, saying that they were happy to have played a part in the dogs’ reunion with their family.

This isn't the first time that a bus driver has saved the day. Back in May of 2019, a TriMet bus driver in Portland, Oregon named Mike Thomas helped out when he noticed a 4-year-old lab walking alongside the Capitol Highway with a strange man, according to KGW News. The local outlet reports that once Mike saw the dog and man, he stopped the bus in order to help out.

"You don't expect to see a person in the road. Let alone a person with a dog," Thomas told KGW.

To make matters stranger, when Mike told the unidentified man to get on board, he left the dog outside and told Mike that the dog was "okay" even though he left him on the side of the highway. And when Mike intervened and said that the man should let the dog come along, the man appeared to not know the dog's name. But the man took Mike's advice, grabbed the dog by his collar, and boarded the bus.

But again, the man acted strangely. He reportedly offered to sell the dog to another bus passenger. With all that had happened, Mike finally decided to take matters into his own hands as the unknown man exited the bus.

"I grabbed Cooper's collar and said the dog's gonna stay with me," Mike told KGW. "I would be getting him back to his family."

And Mike did the right thing, as it turns out that Cooper, the dog, actually belonged to Jane Murphy of Southwest Portland who was on vacation in Hawaii. Luckily, Mike — just like Jamie — knew to do the right thing, and so Cooper was eventually reunited with his rightful owner.

If you were in Jamie or Mike's situation, what would you have done? What do you think of their acts of kindness in helping reunite the dogs with their families? Tell your loved ones about this act of kindness that can only inspire.