Jadeveon Clowney is a household name to Houston Texans fans, but this week, he was a pet owner looking for his lost dog and losing hope of finding him.
King, an old English bulldog, has been part of the Clowney family for the past four years. Three days ago, he vanished.
“I was bringing my three dogs back from the vet,” Clowney said. “The car trunk wasn’t shut, so I pulled over to close it, but I left my door open. That’s when he jumped out.”
King made his exit next to a busy road.
“I kept driving up and down the street, calling his name,” Clowney said.
Still no King.
The next day, miles away in Texas City, Kayla Crane had a visitor on her front porch.
“It was a black and white bulldog,” Crane said. “He definitely wanted inside. I could hear coyotes in the field behind us, and he was looking for somewhere to go.”
She circulated posters of the dog she found, but received no response. When she posted a description of King on social media, the responses came in.
“Some of them had elaborate stories, insisting the dog belonged to them. When I asked for pictures, they never replied,” Crane recalled.
On Thursday, she took King to her vet to be scanned for a microchip. He had one and the trail led to a vet’s office in South Carolina, Jadeveon Clowney’s home state.
“That gave us the information we needed,” Crane said.
She reached out to Clowney’s wife.
“She said she was flying home today, but would have a gentleman come by and pick up the dog,” she recalled.
“I’m the gentleman,” said Clowney, who arrived with his young son to retrieve the missing part of the family. He was baffled by how King ended up in Galveston County, miles away from Pearland.
“He’s a bulldog, and bulldogs don’t travel like that. Somebody must’ve picked him up,” he said.
It’s also a reminder to other pet owners to microchip their animals.
“You’ve got to have a chip in case something happens,” Clowney said. “And hope somebody good finds them.”
Kayla Crane was such a person. She refused the offer of a cash reward for finding him, then finding the Clowney’s.
“I would hope someone would do the same for me if I lost one of my dogs,” she said.
No. 90 insisted that a good deed should be recognized, and presented Crane with an autographed game jersey. He said he’ll also hook the family up with some tickets when football season begins.
