MEMPHIS, Tenn. — When thieves tried to burglarize a South Memphis auto repair shop, they met their match in a one-year-old puppy named Popsicle.
The pit bull terrier mix and another guard dog scared the burglars away, but not before Popsicle was badly beaten with a heavy object. Hyron “Doc” White has plenty to be mad about after his year-old dog was beaten by someone breaking into his auto repair lot on McLemore.
“Actually that really p**sed me off,” White said. “That you would come here and hurt my animal, hurt my dog, to steal. Like they hit him with a pipe or something. I believe it was on his left side, left shoulder.”
It happened a couple of weeks ago on an early Saturday morning when White believes more than one suspect cut through part of this chain link fence at his business that he has run for 10 years.
“I assume they come here to get catalytic converters like they do all over Memphis. I mean it’s an epidemic. That’s what they do,” White said. “They’ll tear your property up, they’ll tear your cars up just for $75-100, 150 bucks.”
White said he had another guard dog named Dallas, but when he got to the scene that morning, he could not find either of his dogs.
“When I got here, there was blood, speckles of blood all over cars,” he said, “and I’m calling my dogs, ‘Where’s my dogs at?”
Only an injured Popsicle was there, and rescue dog Dallas appeared to have run away and has not been seen since. However, White did find plenty of evidence that both Popsicle and Dallas quickly scared the bad guys away.
The young brave dog still has scars from his experience, but after some TLC he is almost back to normal. When asked how he received the name Popsicle, White said:
“When I first got him, he was shaking like he was cold, you know, it took him a while to warm up to me.”
White said he has no security camera video, no description of the suspects and he did not file a police report.
