Tyson Cash owns and operates Keller Creek Boarding and Grooming in Franklin County, Georgia. Every morning, Cash (no relation to singer Johnny) takes his doggy daycare bus house-to-house and his customers’ dogs hop aboard. Last month he was doing his usual rounds when he had an unexpected guest.

Cash stopped to pick up one of his regulars–Motley–and found two dogs sitting in front of the house. (Yes, that’s Motley as in Crüe). When he opened the door, Motley’s new friend tried to rush aboard to join all the other pooches. Cash called Motley’s family to ask how long they’d had the second dog. They didn’t have a second dog, but they said a stray had been hanging around their neighborhood.

Meanwhile, the new dog was doing his best to get aboard. Cash said, “He wanted on the bus badly. He was doing everything he could to get on with the other dogs.”

Cash admitted, “I was concerned about him.” But he couldn’t let a strange dog onto the bus alongside his regular customers. “I didn’t want to jeopardize all the other dogs…I didn’t know about his vaccination status. I didn’t know if he was on flea and tick prevention.”

While Cash’s choice was logical, it didn’t make leaving the poor stray any easier. And this pup sure tugged at Cash heart strings. As Cash drove away, the yellow lab dashed along behind, trying desperately to keep up.

Cash said, “I felt horrible about leaving him.”

So the kennel owner pulled out his phone and took a video of the desperate stray trying to catch the doggie daycare bus. Later, his wife uploaded it to Keller Creek’s social medias.

You won’t be shocked to hear that lots of dog fans follow Cash’s Keller Creek accounts. The love and concern poured in. Commenters explained that the stray lab had been around the neighborhood for a while. Some residents even put out food for him or let him stay a night in their yard. And you won’t believe this: they had nicknamed him Waylon. Yes, Waylon like famed country singer Waylon Jennings.

Sadie Peace is one of Cash’s customers who has been considering a companion for her two-year-old yellow Lab, Nellie. (No, not Willie Nelson. Just Nellie). The video of Waylon trying to catch the bus was all she needed to see. She hurried to the neighborhood in search of him. “He just walked right up to us with these big beautiful brown eyes and stared at us for a second…He fell right in love with us as we did him.”

Sadie took Waylon straight to the vet because he was in rough shape. “All his ribs were showing. He had fleas and ticks all over him…You could just tell he had not been taken care of very well and he had been roaming around for, I guess, weeks.”

You can see Waylon for yourself in the video embedded below. Or read on to find out about his original family.

To Sadie’s shock, Waylon was microchipped. So she got in touch with his old owners and they said they didn’t want him anymore. And as sad as that is to hear, at least it means that there’s no family somewhere waiting for Waylon to come home–Sadie could keep him with a clear conscious.

Now, when the doggie daycare bus pulls up to get Nellie, Waylon is right there next to her. Every day he hops aboard to hang out with Motley and all his other new friends.