Dust Devil Sweeps Up 70-Pound Lab, Sends Dog Spinning Through the Air Across Lawn

By Amanda Thomason May 17, 2021 at 4:49pm

Kids are known to create colorful retellings of actual events. Many times, parents have to do a lot of work to separate fact from fiction — especially if the case involves a spat and the stories don’t quite line up.

But when all three Wampler children rushed to tell their mom a fantastical story on Tuesday, she was intrigued.

The story went something like this: The kids had been out in front of their home in Weyers Cave, Virginia, when Duke, the family’s 70-pound Labrador Retriever, was suddenly tossed into the air, where he spun several times before crashing back down to the grass.

Her kids maintained their story, and they all had the same one, so Brittany Wampler asked the neighbor for their doorbell camera video to see how tall a tale they were telling.

Turns out, they had been right. What appeared to be a dust devil came up behind the large dog and effortlessly tossed him into the air.

“It’s still very tough to imagine that you know a 70-pound dog or close to it and how you know, you don’t see that every day,” Wampler told WHSV-TV.

“How would that have happened? He just kind of looked around and was shaken for a minute but you know he went right back to playing with the kids after that.”

The story started to go viral and Wampler shared it on her Facebook page.

“Well Duke the flying lab is ok, thank goodness, and I didn’t entirely believe my kids at first but to see it with my own eyes…can’t deny it,” she wrote. “He’s not up for autographs yet, we’ll keep ya posted.”

“All 3 kids were right there and had quite the stories,” she wrote in a comment on her Facebook post. “That’s why I reached out to neighbors. … I had to see it!”

The pup seems to be unharmed from his brief flight, and many have inquired about his current state. Wampler has responded that he’s doing well, and added that she’s thankful it wasn’t one of her children, instead, who’d been picked up and thrown.

“I didn’t think to see him dropped or thrown that hard and when I saw it I just replayed it over and over…very glad my youngest wasn’t close by,” she wrote. “Not much weight difference!”

Definitely looks like a dust devil to us

— NWS Baltimore-Washington (@NWS_BaltWash) May 13, 2021

The area has apparently experienced several dust devils lately thanks to the warm, dry conditions. The National Weather Service for Baltimore-Washington even reached out on Twitter to agree that the incident did, indeed, seem to be caused by a dust devil.

While doorbell cameras don’t solve all of life’s unknowns, they have certainly proven useful for identifying porch pirates, catching criminals, spotting random acts of kindness and now recording flying dogs.

Submit a Correction →