East Texas family reunited with missing dog in Waco after 3-week search

WACO, Texas (KWTX) - A dog from East Texas who was missing 24 days after running off from his owners while on a bathroom stop in Waco as the family passed through town has been found in what owners are calling “a miracle.”

Lucy, a three-year-old English Cocker Spaniel, was reunited Sunday with her family including Brennan Potts and his wife Michele as well as their daughter, Kennedy, all of Emory, after a Waco couple called a number listed on a missing poster.

“She said ‘we have your dog,” Brennan said.

The Potts weren’t sure the call was legit as Brennan and Kennedy had just left Waco following another day of exhaustive searching for Lucy.

Michele was traveling out of state.

The family has made trips to Central Texas numerous times from their home 160 miles away since Lucy was lost.

They’d painted the town in signs of their furry friend with a phone number and had received dozens of reported sightings and prank calls.

The family offered a $1,000 reward which they later increased to $5,000.

A post on KWTX with Lucy’s picture was shared around a thousand times.

Brennan and Kennedy were in between Corsicana and Athens headed back to Emory when the phone rang.

“I said ‘can you send me a picture of her real quick?’

“She dropped us two pictures and it was Lucy in their apartment,” Brennan told KWTX. “We just started bawling and I said ‘would it be okay if I got her back?”

Brennan and Kennedy turned around and drove straight to the Waco apartment where a couple walked Lucy outside.

“I call her and said ‘I’m out here’ and they came out and they have Lucy,” Brennan said. “She goes crazy, and they drop the leash.”

Lucy ran full speed to her owners, kissed them, wagged her tail and could barely contain her excitement.

“Oh, she was ecstatic and so were we,” Brennan said.

Brennan said the couple who had Lucy said they’d picked her up in the parking lot of the woman’s employer across the street from Lowe’s and appeared to have kept her the entire time.

She was chipped but was never taken anywhere to be scanned.

Brennan paid the couple the reward money and said he was just happy to have his beloved dog back.

“They got the money, and I got my dog,” he said.

Lucy and Brennan aren’t spending much time at home before heading off on their next big adventure.

Lucy was purchased from Ryglen Gundogs in Illinois where the businesses boast to “import, breed and train some of the best English Cockers from the U-K.”

Lucy hunts with Brennan and is leaving next week for a hunt together in North Dakota.

Brennan said he and his family just want to thank everyone who helped bring Lucy home.

“Lucy is back home after being gone for about three weeks and we couldn’t have done it without all the people who posted and reposted and shared messages and sent tips to us and looked for her,” Brennan said. “We can’t thank you enough. She’s home. She’s healthy and it’s a happy ending.”

Copyright 2023 KWTX. All rights reserved.