Family Buries Dog Following Accident, But Next Day He Shows Up At Their Door

Oct 22, 2021

The loss of a family pet can be a tragic, heartbreaking event, but few people expect the miraculous return of their pet after burying it in their backyard. However, this is exactly what happened to Glenn and Viola when they lost their beloved Mugsy after he was hit by a car.

Glenn, Viola and their three young children had loved and cared for little Mugsy for several years when tragedy struck, as Glenn explained on an old episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” The family dog, a healthy black and white terrier, was struck by a car while Glenn was working not far away in the garage. Glenn rushed over to help Mugsy, who was barely moving and covered in blood.

Unfortunately, the dog died in Glenn’s arms as he was carrying him back to the house. With no signs of respiration and no heartbeat, Glenn did not believe that the dog had any chance of recovery.

With three children in the house who were very attached to the family dog, Glenn understandably did not want them to see Mugsy in this condition. He carried Mugsy’s limp body to the back corner of their yard and placed him in a shallow grave. When Viola returned home later that evening, Glenn told her and the children what had happened, and the family said their goodbyes.

However, little did they know that they would see Mugsy alive and well again very soon. Before dawn the next morning, Glenn woke up to the sound of scratching at the front door. He peeked out the window to see little Mugsy’s tail wagging happily.

Almost 14 hours after being struck by a car, losing all signs of life and being buried in the backyard, Mugsy had returned. 

As Viola explained on the show, the vet told them that Mugsy may have had such shallow respiration and minimal heart activity that it was easy to believe that he was dead. However, after resting in the backyard for several hours, he had recovered enough to dig his way out of the hole and to make it to the family’s front door. While he still needed medical attention to recover fully from his injuries, he went on to live many more happy years being loved by his family.

While Glenn and Viola’s story may sound unbelievable — if not fake — this isn’t the first time that this has happened. In April 2019, The Sun reported on a similar story, which comes out of Russia’s Primorsky Krai region. According to the publication, a Russian family buried their 18-year-old dog, Dik, in the village of Novonikolsk, believing that the motionless dog was dead. But Dik, like Mugsy, was still alive, and after his family buried him in a shallow grave at a nearby pet cemetery, he began to dig himself out.

Once he had escaped his grave, Dik found some passersby who took him to a local animal shelter, where employees posted photos of the 18-year-old dog to social media. Dik’s owners, likely shocked to see photos of their dead dog online, saw the photos and came to retrieve him. The shelter took a video of Dik when he was reunited with his family.

“Dik’s owners thought that he was dead after failing to wake him up. Fortunately, they buried him not deep underground and he managed to get to the surface after regaining consciousness,” said the head of the shelter, Irina Mudrova.

“His owners, two elderly sisters, came to take him home and cried. They were very grateful and donated 5,000 rubles ($71) to our shelter,” she added.

While these stories might sound crazy, some online guides on how to bury a pet specifically say that owners should double-check to make sure that they are really dead. However, usually owners have the opposite problem: thinking that their pet is still alive when it isn’t.

That’s because pets who have passed on might twitch or let out a gasp of air. 

“If you’re uncertain whether your pet has passed away, feel or listen for the heartbeat,” says the owner of Cherry Tree Vets in England, Clare Hamilton, in an interview with Metro.

“This will allow you to understand whether your companion has passed away and allow you to come to terms with their death.”

Luckily, however, these two stories had happy endings. Two loving families found out that — despite their first impressions — their furry, four-legged companions were still alive and well.  

One viewer on YouTube, where the video of Mugsy’s story has accumulated hundreds of thousands of views, called the dog’s return “A Miracle from Heaven.”

In the case of Dik, however, viewers jokingly referred to Stephen King’s horror novel “Pet Semetary.” 

“I wonder, have Dik’s owners read Pet Sematary? Are they afraid for their lives?” one viewer wrote, according to The Sun.

Others were more positive, rejoicing that Dik was still alive. 

“I am crying because I am happy for Dik! He has such loving owners!”

Have you ever heard of something like this before? What do you think happened to these dogs? Let us know — and be sure to pass this story on to friends and family members.