‘Houdini dog’ adopted after trashing shelter, freeing pals

Pets

By Brooke Kato

May 19, 2023 | 2:27pm

This next act is called “The Vanishing Dogs.”

A “rebellious” Fido who freed his friends and tore apart an animal shelter lobby found a forever home less than 24 hours after the debacle.

Titan, a 4-year-old husky, was caught on CCTV footage causing $2,000 worth of damage to the Colbert County Animal Shelter in Tuscumbia, Alabama.

But shelter director Charles Speegle was none the wiser as the pooch party raged on after closing. It wasn’t until he arrived the next morning, on Wednesday, when he saw Titan peeking through the front windows, that he realized something was amiss.

“I got there about 7.15 a.m. I went to unlock the door and he was sitting in front of the door in the lobby looking at me,” Speegle, from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, told Kennedy News.

The 46-year-old couldn’t figure out how the escape artist pulled off the impressive feat — the doors, he said, aren’t “easy” to open and the lobby door opens with a lever.

“How did this guy do all that?” he added.

Then, he spotted the carnage.

“I thought ‘oh gosh’,” Speegle continued. “He’d destroyed my lobby, the blinds were ripped down, he’d destroyed the computer, paperwork, files, the whole interior was shredded.”

CCTV footage showed the pup parading on the front desk, knocking the desktop computer to the floor. Titan, who had just arrived before closing the night prior, also unleashed his two pals.

While dogs can “sometimes” sneak out of their crates, the clever canines “never” open the lobby door — until Titan.

“He’d let two of his buddies out too and they threw a party in the back as well but it wasn’t as bad back there,” Speegle added. “I don’t know how he did it.”

Funny enough, Speegle admitted the alarm company had phoned him Tuesday evening claiming movement was spotted at the shelter. Even with a visit from law enforcement, officers claimed to not see anything suspicious.

“They called again because it was going off again and I said ‘it’s probably a mouse’ so I went to bed and little did I know that they were throwing a party,” he said.

While clean-up required five staff members and a fundraiser to replace the damaged equipment, their liberated antics caught the attention of husky-lovers when the footage was posted online.

On GoFundMegenerous donations total more than $3,000 — one thousand more than their goal.

“I imagine the reason the owner surrendered him is because he’s kind of rebellious and rambunctious,” Speegle said. “Huskies are very clever and hard to contain.”

Rather than deter potential families for troublesome Titan, it garnered some laughs and an onslaught of adoption requests. The “Houdini” hound eventually went home that day with a family who already owned an identical husky.

“We would have had to barricade him in that night if he wasn’t adopted,” Speegle quipped.

But just days after his miracle adoption during his first trip to the vet, he was diagnosed with heartworms.

Christopher Davis, Titan’s new owner, said he “instantly fell in love with the doggy in the window,” according to the “Titan the Destroyer” GoFundMe campaign to raise money for his treatment.

“Who would think such a cute and fluffy little animal could cause so much havoc/chaos,” Davis wrote on the fundraising page, saying he wanted to give Titan “a great new lease on life.”

Pleading for generous donations, kind words or just some good vibes, Davis said he hopes the heartworms haven’t inflicted too much damage on the poor pup.

While Titan allegedly “can’t read” the donors’ well wishes — a fact his human is “not sure” about given the daring dog’s demonstrated intelligence — Davis promised to “give him good scratches and butt rubs in exchange.”