When a family loses a dog, the clock starts ticking in your head right away, even if it’s only been a few minutes.
In a FOX 13 Tampa Bay report, Kailey Tracy explained how that panic is exactly what scammers now hunt for, especially when the family goes public on social media asking strangers for help.
This case started like a normal “missing pet” situation in Pinellas County, and then it swerved into something much uglier: an AI-generated photo, a fake police identity, and a payment request designed to hit when the owners were exhausted and scared.
Tracy’s story centered on Dennis Morida and his German Shepherd puppy, Hazel, who slipped out through a tiny hole in a fence last Tuesday.
Morida trains dogs through a nonprofit called Always a Warrior K9, helping prepare dogs for veterans and others in the community, and he told Tracy he had only been working with Hazel for a short time before she got loose.
That detail matters, because it shows how fast it can happen even when someone is trying to do things the right way.
And once a dog is gone, logic can get drowned out by adrenaline.
The Moment Hazel Got Out And The “Worst-Case” Feeling Took Over
Tracy described video from a doorbell camera that captured Hazel running across the street, with Morida chasing after her seconds later.
It’s the kind of clip that feels harmless until you’re the one watching it, because you can almost hear the thought: “Please don’t keep going.”
Morida told FOX 13 that he and others searched all night, with a big group of people helping.
He described it like a “whole posse” out looking, with social media posts spreading the dog’s photo and their contact info.
If you’ve ever lost a pet, you know that feeling where every passing car sounds like danger and every quiet minute feels like bad news.
By the time the sun goes down and you still haven’t found them, your brain starts writing horror stories for you.
That emotional spiral is the doorway scammers walk through.
Tracy made it clear that the family wasn’t doing anything unusual – they did what most people do now.
They posted online, they asked for help, and they hoped a stranger would spot Hazel and call.
The Call That Sounded Like A Miracle, Until It Didn’t
Morida told Tracy the phone call came around 11 p.m., and it looked like an answer to their prayers.
The person calling from a blocked number claimed to be a sergeant with the St. Petersburg Police Department.
According to Tracy’s reporting, the caller told Morida that Hazel had been hit by a car and taken to an emergency vet.
Then came the next “smart” move in the scam: the caller claimed she was connecting him to the vet, so it felt official and urgent at the same time.
Tracy said the scammers even sent a photo showing Hazel on an operating table, with the story that she needed surgery right away.
Morida believed the image was fake, and he suspected it was created or altered using artificial intelligence, using photos he and his wife Michelle had posted online.
That’s the part that makes your stomach drop, because it shows how the internet can turn against you in real time.
You post a picture because you’re hoping for help, and someone uses it like raw material for a con.
Morida told Tracy the scammers demanded $1,900 to move forward.
He said he offered a credit card, and the caller shut that down with a line that sounded “charitable” on the surface – claiming they were a nonprofit and couldn’t take credit cards.
Morida admitted it didn’t “click” right away that the excuse didn’t make sense.
That’s not stupidity. That’s stress. When you’re scared and running on fumes, your brain starts accepting things it would normally question.
Then the scammer gave the real pitch: pay through Zelle or Venmo. Morida said he had Zelle.And that’s how close this came to becoming a $1,900 loss on top of the heartbreak.
The Twist That Exposed Everything In One Morning
Tracy reported that Morida sent the money, and the scammer told him to pick up Hazel the next morning at Pinellas County Animal Services.
It’s almost cruel how specific that is, because it sounds like a real process – like the dog was “processed” into the system overnight.
But then the story flipped.
The next morning, Hazel showed up at home on her own, unharmed.
Morida described the moment in a way that feels like a movie scene, telling Tracy that Hazel was wagging her tail and sitting there like nothing happened.
One minute, the family is bracing for emergency surgery.
The next minute, their puppy is back in the yard.
That’s when the scam becomes painfully clear, but it doesn’t erase the damage. You still feel embarrassed, violated, and furious that someone was willing to exploit a missing animal for cash.
Tracy said Morida called the local vet the scammer claimed to be from, trying to make sense of it.
Morida described thinking, “Whose dog got hit by a car then?” because the photo looked like Hazel.
But the vet had no idea what he was talking about. That was the moment Morida told Tracy he knew he’d been scammed.
It’s also the moment that shows why AI images are dangerous in this context: they don’t have to be perfect, they only have to be believable when someone is desperate.
Morida has a background in law enforcement and the military, and he still got pulled in – something he openly admitted while talking to FOX 13.
That alone should scare people into paying attention, because it means this isn’t just tricking “careless” folks.
It’s about catching anyone at the worst possible moment.
How The Scam Nearly Worked, And Why It Will Work Again
Tracy’s reporting included a detail that should make every pet owner pause: Morida’s wife’s parents in Georgia received a similar call around 3 a.m., also asking about the missing dog and asking for money.
That suggests these scams aren’t random.
They look organized, like someone is monitoring social media posts and then launching phone calls at the easiest targets – family members, older relatives, anyone who might panic and pay faster.
And the timing is part of the weapon.
Late at night, people are tired, emotional, and less likely to double-check facts.
Scammers know that. They also know that missing pets are a perfect emotional trap, because love for an animal doesn’t come with a “pause button.”
Tracy ended the report with the best piece of news in the whole story: Morida didn’t end up losing money.
His bank flagged the charge, it was marked as fraud, and the payment didn’t fully go through. That is a rare win in a world where fraud often ends with a shrug and a hard lesson.
Still, Morida told Tracy he’s filing a police report, and you can hear why he wants it documented. Because the next family might not get a fraud alert in time. And the next dog might not wander back home safely.
There’s also something darkly revealing here: even when the scam fails, the scammers still took something.
They stole the family’s peace during an already awful night.
The New Reality: Fake Images, Real Panic, And A Simple Survival Checklist
Tracy’s story also included guidance from AI strategist Dr. Jill Schiefelbein, who said people now have to be cautious in a new way.
Schiefelbein compared it to the old days of watching out for suspicious calls and emails, but said the challenge now is that generative images and videos can make a lie feel “confirmed.”
She warned that if something feels overly urgent, it probably is, and that scammers love emotionally vulnerable situations – like a missing pet – because emotion makes people move faster than reason.
That’s exactly what happened here.
The caller didn’t start with money.
The caller started with pain.
Schiefelbein’s advice was practical: slow down and ask questions, especially when someone is pressuring you.
She said that if something is genuine and you push back, legitimate people usually won’t mind answering.
Scammers, on the other hand, tend to get slippery, rude, or impatient the moment you demand proof.
That’s a good test for anyone, because you don’t need to be a tech expert to notice when a story falls apart under basic questions.
Schiefelbein also said people should watch for requests for personal information and identity verification, and pay attention to how the caller reacts when challenged.
If the person on the line is trying to steer you away from normal payment methods and toward instant-transfer apps, that’s a loud warning sign.
In Morida’s case, the credit card refusal is the kind of detail that looks obvious in hindsight, but hindsight isn’t what you have at 11 p.m. when you think your dog is bleeding on a table.
Schiefelbein also cited a World Economic Forum point that overall fraud is down slightly year over year, while warning that scams are getting more sophisticated.
She added that estimates suggest a large share of scams now involve AI in some form, including generative AI or deepfakes.
Even if the exact numbers shift over time, the trend is clear enough to feel in daily life: the lies are getting sharper, faster, and cheaper to produce.
And that means regular people have to build new habits.
Here’s the hard truth I took from Tracy’s report: the best defense isn’t being “smarter” than a scammer.
It’s being willing to pause, even when your heart is screaming at you to act.
If your pet goes missing, post the photos, ask for help, and use every legitimate resource you can – but treat late-night calls like this as unverified until you confirm them through official numbers you look up yourself.
Not numbers they give you.
Because the scariest part of this story isn’t that Hazel got out.
It’s that a stranger almost turned that fear into a paycheck using nothing more than a blocked number, a fake title, and a picture that wasn’t real.
Raised in a small Arizona town, Kevin grew up surrounded by rugged desert landscapes and a family of hunters. His background in competitive shooting and firearms training has made him an authority on self-defense and gun safety. A certified firearms instructor, Kevin teaches others how to properly handle and maintain their weapons, whether for hunting, home defense, or survival situations. His writing focuses on responsible gun ownership, marksmanship, and the role of firearms in personal preparedness.
