This bus driver really pays attention to his surroundings

Mike Thomas is a bus driver for Tri-met in Portland, OR. He was driving his normal route when he noticed there was a man walking with a dog in the middle of the street. He also noticed that the man was leading the dog by his collar and not by a leash.

As mike approached the stranger and “his” dog, he came to a stop to make sure things were okay.

The man was meandering down the middle of the road, in traffic, like it was perfectly normal. Once the driver stopped the bus, the stranger asked to be let on. Normally, a person would have to be at a designated bus stop to board the city bus, but out of concern for everyone’s safety Mike decided to go ahead and let them on.

Mike said he noticed that the dog wasn’t really too keen on his said owner.

He tried to coax the dog on the bus, and Mike was surprised to see that the so-called owner didn’t even know the dog’s name! The wayward pedestrian finally grabbed the sweet Golden Lab by the collar and pulled him onto the bus. Making sure to play his cards right, Mike decided not to do anything just yet. Instead, he paid close attention to how the man was interacting with “his” dog and vice versa.

Things started clearing up for the bus driver even further when the suspected dog thief sat next to another rider. Unbelievably, Mike overheard the strange man talking to the woman when he offered to let her take “his” dog home with her! Luckily, Mike was paying close attention to the situation at hand and was ready to react if he felt he needed too.

At this point, Mike knew he needed to jump into action as soon as the time was right.

“Things didn’t fit together, so I let him know that I just wasn’t buying it,” he said in an interview with The Oregonian.

He sat patiently waiting for the man to exit the bus, not saying anything to alarm him as to what he was about to do.

As the man and the dog approached Mike to exit the bus, Mike reached out and grabbed Cooper (the dog) by the collar to hold onto the dog. Then he let the stranger know that Cooper wouldn’t be going anywhere with him.

“When I got downtown, the gentleman was going to exit, and I grabbed Cooper’s collar and informed him that Cooper would be staying with me, and that I would be getting him back to his family,” Mike recalled.

I wonder what the man was thinking at this point?

The man exited the bus and Mike called the transit police to make them aware of the situation and that he had physical possession of Cooper.

They arrived shortly after and picked up the missing doggy.

After a bit of searching, they found the real owner. Jane Murphy told reporters that she was on vacation and that her son was in charge of taking care of Cooper while she was gone. She also said that she figured that the dog had snuck out somehow and that she was SO thankful that Mike saved her him and that Cooper was returned home safely!

“I couldn’t imagine if that man hadn’t come on the bus, what he would have done with (Cooper),” Murphy said.

Thank you Mike, you’re a good man, and you deserve a raise! To see more about this story and Cooper’s bus riding adventure, watch the video below.

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Source: The Oregonian/The Oregonian YouTube