Suspicious man plotted to steal an expensive puppy at the park — but the owner's quick-witted lie sent him running

A dog owner had a terrifying experience with a strange man trying to steal her pet in broad daylight, but her quick thinking saved her from the ordeal. Kate Smith, who goes by @katelivingoutloud on TikTok, shared a nerve-racking story from the time her dog, Mace, was just a little puppy. She sat with her grown German Shepherd to retell how she saved her pup from being stolen by a man asking random questions. All she did to escape the situation was establish a lie about her dog. 

Smith began with a snippet of her adorable puppy frolicking in the park and barking in his tiny voice. “He was so tiny, so un-ferocious,” she hinted, urging viewers to pay heed to Mace’s non-threatening nature. During one of their trips to the park, Smith and her dog were out playing with no one around. “I was sitting on the ground, just like, throwing his toy for him while he played,” Smith said. They were alone that mid-afternoon on a weekday, until a stranger approached, trying to make conversation. “He scared me bad enough that after he left, I ran to my car and I called my best friend at the time.”

The pet owner informed her friend about the suspicious man, describing him as "very large," who asked if Mace was expensive. As Smith affirmed that she indeed paid a lot of money to get the dog, the man inquired whether or not he was microchipped. “An expensive dog like that, you probably got a microchip, huh?” she recalled the man’s words. Probably clueless, he asked about microchips and whether they could be tracked by phone. As Smith listened to the man’s queries, alarm bells went off in her head. She immediately realized the gravity of the situation and how easily he could steal her dog with no one around to help.

“I’m this tiny person with a tiny, itty bitty, expensive-looking puppy, and I’m on the ground. I’m not even able to quickly run. So I just started making stuff up,” Smith recalled. She noted that it was not possible to track the microchip itself, but decided to blatantly lie to his face to protect her dog. When he asked about tracking the chip on her phone, the dog owner promptly replied, “Yes.” Strangely enough, he turned his eyes towards her phone lying on the grass. At that moment, Smith's quick-witted response urged the man to flee. She said that the microchip was also connected to her laptop and even her vet could track the dog with a simple scan in case he got lost somewhere. 

“I was like, ‘Yeah, the vet can track the dog, and they can share the information with the police. That way, we can send animal control to go pick him up,” the dog owner lied. Baffled by the technology, the man was surprised by microchips’ potential and walked away. Smith was left thinking about his true intentions but was relieved she had been able to protect her puppy from the ordeal. 

You can follow @katelivingoutloud on TikTok for more videos.