It was 4 am one early morning when Jack Jokinen’s wife woke him up, even though he had a 1-month-old baby, he knew this was something different.
“I was sleeping and my wife all of a sudden woke me up, and she said, ‘The baby’s OK … but there’s a puppy in our house,’” Jokinen told The Dodo. “Obviously, I was very confused.”
I just woke up to this puppy in my house and we have no idea how it got here. pic.twitter.com/OZMystNsZE
— Jack Jokinen (@JJFromTheBronx) December 14, 2019
Jokinen made his way downstairs and found what looked to be a tiny Lab mix in his living room.
As the storm raged outside, he couldn’t figure out how the dog had gotten into the house with all the doors and windows locked.
“The first thing I think is, ‘There has to be someone in our house,’” Jokinen said. “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?’”
So he looked at the surveillance footage from the night before on the camera mounted outside his front door and saw himself returning from a stroll with his 2-year-old dog George.
As he made his way inside, Jokinen tried to seal the door, but it remained unlocked. Later that night, when the wind picked up, the front door flew out wide.
“Then at 3:16, on the camera, we can see the dog, we’ve named her Suzy, coming down the street and she stops outside our house,” Jokinen said. “She was out in the rain and cold, and she kind of hesitated and then went into the house.”
A half-hour later, a stranger passed by and saw the door was open as well. Having double-checked that all was well, he shut the door. “He didn’t know there was a dog in the house that wasn’t ours.”
Jokinen and his wife dried the dog and helped her feel at ease. The next day, they phoned animal control, but they immediately concluded that surrendering the ailing stray was not the best option.
“She was emaciated, teeth all over the place, only walking on three legs with no collar,” Jokinen said. “We thought, ‘If we just drop this dog off, who knows what will happen?’”
She’s feeling better already pic.twitter.com/2Y6y9QXN6r
— Jack Jokinen (@JJFromTheBronx) December 14, 2019
The family decided to take the “puppy” Suzy to the vet instead, where they were startled to hear that she was actually 9 years old.
Suzy was infected with fleas and ticks, and she also had dental problems. The couple decided to help.
“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, to end up with a sweet dog, who has come off the street … We have to at least give this a try,” Jokinen said.
Jokinen surprised himself when he posted a picture of Suzy and it became viral. He got $15,000 in donations in less than two days to help pay for the medical costs of the elderly dog.
On social media, he also tracked down the kind stranger who had graciously shut his door for him that night.
Suzy is now secure and warm, and her new family is working with her to help her gain weight. After a long time, she finally has a place to call home.
“We’re able to do all this in a big part thanks to the generosity of the internet,” Jokinen said. “In a way, this isn’t our dog — it’s the internet’s dog.”
