Woman Says Man Tried To Chat Her Up After Getting Number Off Dog Collar
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A TikTok star has claimed that a stranger managed to get his hands on her phone number and asked her out after grabbing the number off her dog's collar. Seriously, have a look at the video.
Michelle Kimball was out for a walk with her German Shepherd Nilla near to her house in North Carolina when she says a friendly man stopped her under the auspices of seeing her dog.
He stroked the dog for a bit, before he asked if he could take a photograph of the animal, which sounds a bit weird to begin with, but she thought little of it and went about her day.
However, it did turn out that she would have been right to think it was strange, as just a few hours later she received a message from the man, trying to lay his best game down.
In an interview with Inside Edition, Michelle explained: "I said, 'I don't know anybody by that name? How did you get my phone number?'."
"He said, 'Oh, I got it off your dog's collar.'"
Yeah, that's a bit weird, right?
Now, Michelle - who was understandably creeped out by the experience - says that she wants to warn other dog owners to take care about who they let near their dog.
To be honest, taking pictures of someone else's dog that you just met in the street is strange behaviour, and should represent a red flag.
But, Michelle wasn't to know that was happening.
That said, according to safety expert Barb Jordan, incidents like this aren't actually that unusual, and strangers have used similar techniques to wheedle their way into other people's lives before.
She said: "We never think that people are going to be using our dogs to get close to us. But predators, they have no limits. They have no boundaries."
The same sort of thing happened to another dog owner, Shay Grayson, whilst she was out walking her Maltese.
Grayson said that she had a man ask to take pictures of her pooch, but quickly twigged what was happening.
She said: "I noticed that he was actually holding up her dog collar and the dog tag, and then I realized he was actually taking a picture of my address, which was on the dog tag,
"My home could be broken into. Or whenever I took my dog out one day, he could be out there to either kidnap my dog or to do something to me.
"There were so many things that could happen with him having my address."
Yeah, that's a thought.
Instead of creeping on her - which isn't on to start with - he could have had quite a few of her personal details from the collar.
Scary stuff, stay safe out there folks.
