It’s an act that all parents dread, but many of them end up having to go through it at some point in their lives. Glenn Maloney would have to tell his children that their dog Mugsy was dead.
It was about 3 p.m. when Maloney says Mugsy was hit by a car outside his girlfriend Viola Tiszl’s house in Severna Park, MD.
“I picked Mugsy up,” he told PEOPLE, ” but he died in my arms.”
Maloney was watching their children Megan and son Kevin.
He didn’t want the children to see the bloody condition their beloved dog was left in so told them to stay inside.
He checked the dog to see if it was breathing, but he concluded that the 4-year-old Jack Russell terrier was not breathing and had no heartbeat.
“I was really upset. So I buried him quick and I didn’t even tell the children,” Maloney told Oprah. “I didn’t have the nerve to tell the children, until like seven o’clock that night. Mugsy was dead.”
The family came outside to have a little ceremony to say their goodbyes to Mugsy. Megan asked if they could put a cross at Mugsy’s grave and Maloney said they would make sure they put one up in the morning.
The family said a prayer for Mugsy and came back inside.
Then at 5:30 a.m. in the morning they were woken up by a scratching noise at the door. When Maloney opened the door it was Mugsy.
“Little tail wagging at 90 mph,” he recalled.
Tiszl and Maloney were quite shocked and a little freaked out. Tiszl said that Maloney must have buried another dog who got hit by a car and looked like Mugsy. But Maloney insisted that he got a look at the dog’s tags and that it was definitely Mugsy that he buried.
He even went out to the grave to confirm that it was dug up.
“Mugsy was covered with dirt and his eyes were bloodshot,” says Tiszl, who said Mugsy was otherwise chipper. “Jack Russells are bred to burrow after foxes. I guess when he woke up in that hole, he just thought it was another old hole and he dug his way out, not knowing it was supposed to be his grave.”
Veterinarians figured that he was probably just taking a nap until he decided to dig himself out.
“The vet said that probably after six hours, he actually dug his way out,” Tiszl told Oprah. “His heart rate and everything was so slow that it was not obvious that he was alive. He had no vital signs.”
You have to hear the family tell the story from their own mouths. Watch them on the Oprah show below.
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