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He named him Jack.
At the time, Craig was about a year into recovery.
He says Jack helped him stay sober.
I had been living in my head with the shame of my addiction and fear of the future.
And the minute Jack came for the first time in years...
You know, he pulled me out of my head.
And so just walking down the street that I had walked down countless times before, I just saw the street.
You know, I was able to be present.
And I made a promise that I would spend the rest of his life trying to repay him for the difference that he made in mine
Craig had Jack for 15 years.
They were amazing people.
He's been gone for two years.
In late 2024, Craig decided to start looking for a dog again.
I finally decided it was time.
You know to do for a dog what Jack and I had already done for each other again.
But it took you a couple of years.
It did.
Jack and I were really, really close and we were together for a long time and things got difficult at the end as he continued aging.
But coming home to an empty house, coming home to a quiet house with Jack, the gifts of Jack were a sense of structure, a sense of purpose and a sense of connection.
And so I decided it was time.
Craig joined several miniature pincher Facebook groups.
And one weekend he saw a photo of a one-year-old miniature pincher who was with a rescue in Syracuse.
Craig lives in Brooklyn.
He decided to put in an application.
Before the weekend was over, he heard back.
His application was approved.
And that's when I drove to Syracuse.
And when you went to pick him up and you first saw him, did you immediately feel a connection?
Did you think to yourself, well, this is right?
No.
No.
I wish I could say that I did, but we had to do our meet and greet in the parking lot of a strip mall in Which was unfortunate because of the situation that he came from.
He was already so challenged with his reactivity and anxiety.
And so it was really not a fair situation for him.
And I wasn't able to get much of a read.
I couldn't get his attention, much less a sense of connection.
But I felt like I could do it.
You know, we had a five-hour car ride from Syracuse back to the city the day that I adopted him.
And by the end of that trip, I was his person.
I'm Phoebe Judge, and this is love.
When you got him home, were you worried about this new dog in your life?
Did you think to yourself, What have I done?
Yeah, I was terrified.
Absolutely terrified.
But the same thing happened with Jack, right?
Like that first night, I woke up at like three o'clock in the morning in a straight up panic attack.
I mean, cold sweats, racing heartbeat.
I was like, what have I done?
And that turned out better than okay, right?
Like it was an amazing situation.
It started rough.
And so when I had second thoughts about him too.
I was like, I know this fear, right?
I've been here before.
Craig named the dog Buddy.
We would have moments where he would get close.
He likes to be up on the back of the sofa.
So he would get on the back of the sofa and put his head on my shoulder.
But if I moved, then he'd be across the room and down the hall.
So it was like that.
Baby steps.
There were baby steps in terms of improvements on his behavior.
When Craig had to go to work during the day, he hired a dog walking company to come and take Buddy for his walk.
But then, 16 days after Craig had adopted Buddy, something happened.
On December 26th, the walker had come.
I was at work.
The walker came for his walk.
She got about a block and a half away and she said he was startled by a truck and he pulled away and got away from her with his leash and harness on.
And once he got away from her, he just took off running in his panic.
And we're four blocks from Prospect Park and he ran in that direction.
Do you remember, where were you when you got the call?
Do you remember?
Yeah, I was at work.
I worked at St.
Regis Hotel.
And so I was there and the owner of the walking agency called or sent a text saying that Buddy had gotten away from the walker and that they were looking for him.
What did you think?
Well, I was alarmed.
I was really alarmed, but I really thought that they were going to handle it.
I sent another text like half an hour later asking for any updates, and he said no, nothing.
But this was back in December, and so it was already starting to get dark.
Craig left work and joined the dog walkers, who were looking for Buddy, in Prospect Park.
For people who don't know Prospect Park, can you kind of describe what it is and how big it is?
Prospect Park is the central park of Brooklyn.
One of its main features is the Long Meadow, which is over three miles of open park space.
So it's very large.
It's less manicured than Central Park, less roads, has a lake and wooded areas.
Like you know, it's expansive and lots of wild spaces for a small dog to tuck itself away.
They looked for hours, but didn't find Buddy.
Eventually, Craig went home to print posters with Buddy's picture.
What was it like when you came home without him thinking about him being out there?
The hardest part.
It was the hardest part and I was definitely worried about him coming back and about him being safe.
Craig started putting up posters in the park.
And I was just walking through the park, stopping anybody with a dog, showing them the poster explaining that Buddy was lost, asking them to take a picture of the poster so that they could call me if they had anything to report, and encouraging them to post on their social medias if they felt so moved.
Craig was also posting about Buddy online, anywhere he could think of.
I posted in a lost, a Brooklyn lost and found, Brooklyn pets lost and found.
And in that group, someone in the comments suggested a lost pet search and rescue.
Craig contacted them, They said they could help.
And Craig says he felt optimistic.
He'd heard other people had had good luck.
A few days later, they said they believed they'd found Buddy.
Craig got excited.
But then he realized that something wasn't right.
It turned out to be a scam.
And these people continued to reach out to me saying that they had my dog, wondering why I wasn't continuing to send them money.
Several days passed.
Craig kept searching the park, sometimes with friends.
I was working 8 to 3, and so I would go through the park before work.
I would leave work and go straight to the park. the days were so short.
I was always there in the dark calling this dog who didn't know his name.
It was, you know, it was just a needle in a haystack and it felt really, I felt really helpless.
Were you starting to lose hope after, I mean?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
It was a roller coaster and I would go from, you know, we're going to find him.
Today's the day.
And of course this, this scam search and rescue group.
They had me on the line, you know.
Oh, we think we found him, we think we bought him.
And so they were feeding me this false hope.
And so maybe that's where my hope was coming from.
But there were also these moments of acknowledgement that, you know, it had been a long time.
And people.
Most people were encouraging and, you know, Expressing hope that he would be found and come home.
But other people, you know, were sharing stories of their pets that got lost and never came back.
We'll be right back.
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More than a week had passed, and still, no one had found Buddy.
The weather had not cooperated.
There was a winter storm in the forecast.
So he had been gone for nine days and in another 48 hours another winter storm was coming through and they were talking about dangerous wind chills.
And you know, I was starting to wonder if maybe he wasn't so cute that someone just took him and decided to keep him or send him to their cousin or aunt or whatever.
Craig had been going to the park before and after work every day for the past nine days, showing people photos of Buddy and asking if they'd seen him and if they would keep an eye out for him.
There was a couple that I approached yesterday.
And they were so empathetic, and she asked if she could give me a hug because I was emotional.
She asked where I had been posting and she said she didn't live in Park Slope anymore, but she was still a member of those groups.
And I think she posted to Park Slope Together.
Park Slope Together is a Facebook group for people who live in that neighborhood.
Craig joined the group, too.
Although he doesn't live in Park Slope, he lives in Flatbush.
When Buddy's lost dog poster was posted, someone named Gio commented.
Although I am not religious, I will send word out to St.
Anthony.
St.
Anthony is known as the patron saint of lost things.
According to a legend, after a precious book of his was stolen, he prayed and prayed and the book was eventually returned.
When people lose something, they sometimes say a prayer to St.
Anthony.
The traditional prayer goes, Dear St.
Anthony, please come around.
Something is lost and it cannot be found.
And then on January 3rd, a Friday afternoon, a man named Tom posted two photos in Park Slope together.
He wrote that he'd spotted a lost and cold dog near a large meadow in the park.
It was standing between some trees in a pile of dead leaves, looking alert.
It wasn't wearing a collar or harness.
It looked like Buddy.
Craig didn't see the photos right away.
He was at work, but other people did.
The dog looked cold and hungry and it looked pretty skinny in the photo and that definitely had an impact on me.
Michael Carson was working from home that Friday.
He lives in Park Slope and is a member of Park Slope Together.
And he has a 35-pound miniature Australian shepherd named Indy.
It had been so cold recently and there was a ton of like just emotions hitting me in that moment and I really care about dogs generally.
I went and I told my wife about it and I was like there's a part of me that wants to go to the park, but I don't know, I don't want to get in the way of anything and you should just go.
She's like, you're pretty good at looking for stuff.
So I got dressed and I ran up to the park in the mid-afternoon.
It turned out lots of people had the same idea.
So last year maybe it was a year and a half ago or so I rescued or helped find a cat, that a family was missing.
Elon Kane also lives in Park Slope.
So all of a sudden I was thinking, maybe I'm the next Ace Ventura.
So once I saw that picture I sort of recognized where the area was and sort of jumped into action, I suppose.
Elon has a dog named Suki.
He'd also just had surgery a few months prior and was in a leg brace.
So I had an electric scooter that was helping me get around.
So I
Hopped on my electric scooter, scooted over to Prospect Park where he was spotted.
I was able to use it use the scooter, I suppose as a way of getting around pretty quickly and searching different spots.
But yeah, it was tough getting around.
But I felt like if my dog was in that position, it wouldn't matter if I was in a leg cast or even a full body cast.
I would do anything to find my dog.
So that's what I was really trying to do there.
I just went over there.
I think it gave everyone a sense of hope.
And a lot of people showed up.
A lot of just random people showed up.
Jacqueline Pack lives near Prospect Park.
She has a dog named Oliver.
The sun was going down, it was getting dark, and I had brought a couple flashlights.
And I was like, you know, shining flashlights into different areas.
And people were stopping and talking to me and asking me like, hey, what's going on?
Are you looking for your dog or like something?
And i would told them about buddy.
And then a few people actually ended up joining in the search just through walking, because they were walking by and just started to talk to us about, like hey, what's going on and had a little bit of time.
So that was really cool to see that too, like people who didn't even hear about it prior to that, but just wanting to stop and help.
So one person brought their own dog, um.
Another person brought a couple squeakers to help draw Buddy out from somewhere.
It was really great to see the community coming together to find a missing dog.
Craig had been on his way home from work.
It takes him an hour each way on the subway when he says his phone started blowing up.
People were texting me and calling me saying that this dog had been seen and it looked like Buddy from the posters and they wanted to know if I had seen it and I hadn't.
Craig checked out the photos on Facebook and got in touch with the person who had posted them to find out where exactly he had seen Buddy.
And I headed straight to the park and went to the location that he had been seen.
And as I was looking, people were coming up to me telling me that they were looking for this lost dog that had been seen.
And then I would say, oh, that's my dog.
No, I'm looking too.
Thank you.
What was it like to be out there calling Buddy's name and look around and see other people looking for Buddy also.
It was surreal.
I mean, it was surreal. significant number of people.
And after working with such a small group of friends and feeling so helpless.
It was a needle in a haystack.
And so to have numbers on our side for the first time after so long.
It gave me a whole new source of energy, and it couldn't have happened at a better time for him or for me.
I had downloaded like an app on my phone and was going on YouTube playing like dog whistles and different squeaky noises to try to draw Buddy out.
Nothing was happening.
Anytime you saw or heard a squirrel or a leaf sort of rustle, you'd be like, oh, is that Buddy?
So I just pulled out my phone and looked at Google Maps and I just got into the general area where the dog was spotted.
Michael Carson.
And then I just tried to really slowly and systematically canvas like every square foot of the general area, which certainly was not small.
I saw someone who was just like whistling and saying like yelling buddy's name.
Um, so I, I went up to him and just asked if he was the owner of buddy.
And he said, yes, he was stressed.
We searched until after dark and I um a group of people came up and I said listen, I I was out here this morning before work.
I've been out here since I got off of work and I'm I'm exhausted and there were some folks there with flashlights and they were so supportive and said that they understood entirely and encouraged me to take care of myself and promised that they were going to stay out for a while longer with their flashlights and see if they couldn't find him.
And I was just blown away.
So your plan was?
I'll go home, I'll get some rest, and I'll come back out tomorrow.
And tell me about the next day.
Well, I was so excited that there had been a sighting and that I didn't feel so isolated and alone in all of this.
And so I was up before dawn the next day and went to the area where he had been seen and was calling and whistling and still running into people and hearing people in the distance calling Buddy's name.
Michael Carson had decided he would go back to the park that morning, too.
I just couldn't get it out of my head, so I made the decision I was going to go back to the park on Saturday morning.
I got up there again early and after a few hours of looking that Saturday morning I was getting to a point where I was, I was resigned where, like I feel like I've checked this whole area
Maybe the dog has moved on.
So I started heading back toward the edge of the park and, um, there was a hill in the way.
And I sort of remembered the day prior I looked around the area but there was like two teenagers who were like making out in that area.
And I intentionally didn't want to get close to them and invade their privacy or make them feel weird.
Um, I, I sort of like walked into this area that was pretty empty.
Um, and then I there was this long tree trunk from a tree that had sort of like fallen over and the trunk was hollowed out, like rotted away by like 10 feet long.
And I just like walked up in front of it, bent over, and I looked down in and And right as I did that, I just saw like two big, like kind of white eyes looking back at me.
I wasn't sure immediately what it was because all I could really see were the eyes.
But then, as my eyes adjusted a little bit to how dark it was, in the log I could tell that it was the dog, just based on, like the shape of the head, the size of the head where the ears were.
I was in complete shock.
As soon as I saw his eyes, I just sort of laughed to myself because the log was so long and dark.
Even if I had looked in the log, you know, I would not have seen Buddy unless he picked up his head and looked back at me with his eyes.
If he had stayed flat on the ground even, and kind of just tilted his eyes to me, I don't think I would have seen him.
And so it was like it was a ton of luck that allowed me to spot him.
So I took a picture of Buddy and I posted it to the Facebook group.
The photo is dark, but you can see Buddy inside the tree trunk lifting his head and looking sideways at Michael.
When Michael posted the photo to the Park Slope Together Facebook group, people got excited.
Over 600 people liked or commented on the photo, writing things like rooting for Buddy, and I've never held my breath for so long.
I was very worried about the dog running away from me.
I was worried about there might be another opening on the other side of the log that I couldn't see.
So I just backed away a little bit.
So i am like what am i?
How am i gonna make sure i can grab the dog?
And it was like right around that time that i noticed there was a man at sort of the bottom of the hill who it seemed like he was putting out dog food.
Um, and i i wanted him to like come over to me to help me, but i also didn't want to yell or really make any noise, so i didn't want to.
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The man putting out dog food was the owner of the dog walking company that had lost Buddy.
He approached and he got, you know, ran the other side of the log and he, you know, he said, is Buddy in there?
And I said, yes.
I was like, do you see an exit on your side?
He said, no.
I was like, he doesn't have a harness on, so I can't, I need to like grab him or something.
He's like, oh, I have, you know, some leashes and stuff that he doesn't need a harness for.
So he walks over with me to the other side of the log.
He takes out some of the wet food and he gives it to me and I just put the wet food in my hand and I put it out in front of the log.
And as soon as Buddy saw the food, he immediately just stood up and slowly started walking over to us, still in the log.
And he started eating out of my hand.
And then The other guy I was with he managed to get the leash over his head and picked him up and he put him in his coat.
People from the Park Slope Together Facebook group started contacting Craig who had gone home to charge his phone.
I had 52 text messages, 48 missed calls, and 12
And as I'm trying to compute all of that, make sense of all of that, my phone starts ringing and it's work.
And it's one of the security guys from work.
And by now, everybody knows, right?
Everybody at work knows that I've been looking for this dog endlessly for nine days.
And he said listen, I don't know if this is legit or not, but there's these people calling the hotel saying that they found your dog.
Craig called the owner of the dog walking company and learned that he and Michael had walked to the nearest veterinarian to get Buddy checked out.
And so I got a car and went straight there to pick him up.
I didn't know if he was going to remember me when I got there.
I had only had him for 16 days before he disappeared and he was gone for nine days and I was fully prepared to be, you know, a stranger again.
But as soon as I walked in the room where he was, you know, they had him on a little metal table and he just started tapping his little nails on that table tap tap tap tap, tap.
And I went over to him and it was a raised table and he just put his forehead on my chest and took a deep sigh.
After buddy was found, Craig posted in the Facebook group just wanted to let everyone know that buddy is doing well and is glad to be home.
He also wrote I was truly humbled by the way this group showed up and came through for us.
About two weeks later, Craig posted another update, a bunch of photos of buddy on an early morning walk in Prospect Park wearing a padded winter coat and a leash.
Craig wrote, Buddy was back in the park this morning with a coat and some company this time.
We spoke with Craig at his apartment and during the entire interview Buddy was right there on the couch with us on Craig's lap.
Hey, Buddy.
Come here.
Were you surprised that so many people showed up to look for him?
Yeah.
I've lived in New York City since 1995, so 30 years.
And I've heard it said that New York City is the biggest small town.
And this was definitely an example of how this big big place, when you break it down, it's actually just a bunch of really small places close together.
Why do you think people were so inspired to come out and look for him?
I think anybody who has or has had a dog, you know, just imagining the helplessness.
And I think people, you know, at the end of the day, people are good and they want to help.
Yeah. and this dog needed help.
We needed help.
We spoke with Craig and Buddy last spring.
A few months later they were on a walk together.
When Craig says that Buddy was attacked by two dogs.
He later died from his injuries.
When Craig shared the news On the Park Slope Together Facebook group, hundreds of people responded, including one person who wrote He touched the hearts of so many.
Craig recently told us he wanted to share Buddy's story of being lost and found.
To quote celebrate the community he revealed.
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I'm Phoebe Judge, and this is love.
