A place often reserved for trolls and unfortunate memes, the internet sometimes can get its shit together and do some good. Meet Joey, a lost dog, who, through the magic of Reddit, finally made his way home.
Matus Turek, 29, of suburban Lisle was hiking earlier this month in Starved Rock State Park with Joey, a 7-year-old miniature pinscher, when his family’s dog wandered off. Turek panickedly called his brother, Gabriel Turek, 24, who lives in Portland, Ore. “I just felt helpless,” Gabriel Turek said. “I was up all night thinking about how I could find a way to find him.”
Matus Turek had no luck searching for Joey in person, but on the other side of the country, his brother had more success posting about the dog on the /r/Chicago subreddit. Gabriel Turek posted around midnight the same night Joey went missing in the hopes that by morning somebody would be able to help find him. He was right. Overnight, his Reddit inbox flooded with messages from people offering support.
While running around in the middle of his day shift as a pizza cook, Gabriel Turek received a message from Reddit user “dasbiscuits,” aka Tyler Gibson, IRL. Gibson, 28, of Ukranian Village, had seen Turek’s post on /r/Chicago and decided, as a former resident of a city near Starved Rock, to share it on his Facebook. “If you lose a dog, that would be the best place to do it,” Gibson said. “People go nuts trying to find them.”
Within a few hours, Gibson’s Facebook post had been shared more than 300 times, with Starved Rock park-goers and employees reaching out and saying they’d spotted Joey running around.
“If we’re not out looking for a lost kid, we’re out looking for a lost dog,” said Don Petre, Starved Rock’s site assistant superintendent. “Now with the internet, people find things they wouldn’t have been able to otherwise.”
While the interwebs were working their magic, Matus Turek had returned to Starved Rock the next morning in search of Joey—but to no avail. Having given up, Matus Turek was more than an hour away from the park when his brother called, equipped with Gibson’s social media findings.
Matus Turek immediately turned his car around.
After spending a few hours on the hunt for Joey—clues were still pouring in from Facebook—Matus Turek found the little guy hiding in a bush. Joey, obviously antsy to get home after a wild night alone in the wilderness, leapt out at Matus Turek as soon as he saw him.
“We really didn’t think we would see him again,” Gabriel Turek said. “I have never felt that relieved in my entire life.”
Now, Gabriel Turek and Gibson still remain Facebook friends, because how can you unfriend the guy who helped find your lost dog?
“Somehow, all these people came together to help a stranger across the country,” Gabriel Turek said of the digital search party. “I’m just so extremely thankful.”
Finding Joey, to Gabriel Turek, was an example of the internet not just being a place where teenagers and middle-aged men angrily yell at each other from their mom’s basements.
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“You always hear about stories like this, but you don’t ever think they actually happen,” he said. “The internet is such a weird place.”