Dog In Flooded Texas Town Grabs 5lb Bag Of Food From Nearby Store

Otis the golden retriever escaped his home in Sinton, Texas, only to return with a stolen bag of dog food

After Hurricane Harvey battered the coast of Texas over the weekend, there’s one resident who made the best of his situation: Otis the golden retriever, who escaped his home and returned with a bag of dog food that he found himself in an abandoned store.

The morning after Harvey made landfall, Tiele Dockens was driving through Sinton, Texas, north of Corpus Christi, to survey the damage caused by the hurricane, when she saw a hilarious sight: A dog was walking up the street, carrying a full, unopened bag of dog food in his mouth.

Dockens snapped a photo and shared it online, writing, “This dog is walking around Sinton TX carrying a entire bag of dog food with him. LOL.” The photo quickly went viral, and has since been shared nearly 40,000 times.

Dockens later talked to the dog’s owner and learned that the he lives on the street where she saw him, and that his name is Otis.

“I saw Otis Saturday morning making the turn towards his house carrying a five pound bag of dog food,” she told Scary Mommy. “My first though was, ‘What is he carrying?’ and my second thought was how cute he was prancing along towards his house with a full, unopened bag of food.”

Dockens added that Otis stole the bag of food from a lumber store across the street, but she doesn’t know whether his owners have been able to return it yet.

Otis and his family are safe in Hurricane Harvey’s wake, the Huffington Post reports, but Sinton, where they live, and Papalote, where Dockens lives, were still among the towns that made up more than 300,000 homes without water or power as of Saturday evening. Harvey, a category four storm, dumped 15 inches of rain and had sustained winds of over 130 miles per hour, and emergency responders are working overtime to rescue trapped families, restore power and clear the streets as heavy rain is expected to continue falling over the next few days, according to HuffPo.

HuffPo also reports that animal shelters are expected to become overcrowded as they open their doors to pets who were lost or left behind during the storm. To help animals like Otis in the Gulf area, contact the SPCA of Texas, Austin Pets Alive!, Dallas Animal Services or the San Antonio Humane Society.