Stolen Mother’s Day flowers led to the reunion of a family and their lost Shih Tzu
Always chip your pets.
A noble Shih Tzu and a bouquet of pink roses.
Two years ago, the Gonzales family let Leela (named after the one-eyed character played by Katey Sagal on “Futurama”), their Shih Tzu, outside to go to the bathroom and the dog never returned. "We searched for months down the neighborhood. We thought a coyote or something got her,” Mark Gonzales said according to My San Antonio. The family had given up all hope of finding Leela until a strange event bought them back together.
On Mothers Day at 8:20 pm, police were called to the H-E-B store in Lytle, Texas after reports that a man had fled the store after stealing a $15 bouquet of flowers.
"The guy gets into a car with paper tags and drives off," Lytle Police Chief Richard Priest said. "Then the [H-E-B manager] noticed the guy left a little brown Shih Tzu in the shopping cart. I've never had somebody leave their dog there when they commit a theft," Priest said. "Nothing says I love you mom like stolen flowers."
The police took the dog to a local shelter where its chip was checked and they discovered it belonged to the Gonzales family. The next day, Mark’s wife, Belinda, got a call from Lytle Animal Care and Control saying they had their long-lost dog.
"We were visiting a friend in the ICU, having breakfast, when she got the call," Mark said. "It was totally unexpected. Thank God my wife got her chipped, spayed and her shots back in 2018."
Gonzales said his wife is “tickled to death” to have Leela back home and that their son is in for a big surprise when they get home.
"When she got lost, he was eight. It feels good. I encourage people to chip their dogs, either way you might get your dog back," Gonzales said. "This is a strange way to get my dog back, but at least we got her back."
The police believe they know who the man is because he visited the shelter in an attempt to get the dog back after stealing the flowers. The suspect who is in his 40s faces a Class C citation for theft. The good news for the Gonzales family is that even though Leela was associated with the man who committed the crime, she won’t face any charges.
“The dog isn’t facing any charges, as we can’t prove he engaged in the theft,” Priest joked. “Hopefully, the dog hasn’t been on (a) 2-year crime spree and picked up bad habits.”
Studies show that microchip programs have been very effective at reuniting lost pets with their owners. A 2015 study on over 7700 microchipped animals found that the reclaim rates were substantially higher for pets with chips.
Chipped dogs that were picked up by shelters made it home 52% of the time, versus 22% of the non-chipped, and 39% of chipped cats found their owners versus just 2% of non-chipped.
If your dog is chipped make sure you have updated their information with the service provider. The study also found that 35% of pets with chips that wind up in shelters have an incorrect or disconnected phone number associated with the pet.
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A Generation Jones teenager poses in her room.Image via Wikmedia Commons
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An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
- YouTube youtube.com
Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.