Fort Worth native Eugene Bostick gained national attention when a local TV station did a story on his homemade “dog-train,” a year ago. The 81-year-old quickly went viral after a neighbor shared a photo of him and his invention on Facebook. Bostick takes his dogs out riding once a week in a barrel caravan that he made after seeing a hunter using a similar strategy to haul rocks. The pups are rescued strays that were dumped on his farm.

After his story aired, donations and support poured out from dog-lovers across the nation. “A group out of Austin… they brought me a block of dog food down here and a bunch of dog blankets, which I needed,” said Bostick. “Same with a lady out of Oklahoma. She brought us about 400 pounds of dog food.” Bostick was flown out to Los Angeles, California for the Fox television 2015 special The All Star Dog Rescue Celebration, produced by Michael Levitt and Academy Award winner Hillary Swank. On the show, he was awarded The Citizens Rescuer of the Year. Bostick, who’d never flown on a plane before, agreed to go as long as his wife and daughter could come too. “And we got first class all the way up there. We stayed at the Hilton hotel, and when we had to go somewhere they sent a limousine to pick us up and take us,” he said. “We had a grand time.” After a month of interviews and excitement, life seemingly went back to normal for Bostick. However, his story started trending on the Internet, with news outlets like Buzzfeed, Oddity Central and the Huffington Post running his story. With no access to the Internet, Bostick was oblivious to the fact that he is a viral sensation.

“No I didn’t. I knew a little bit about it, but I didn’t know about what you was telling me about how viral it went… it makes me feel pretty good really.” Bostick, who’d never heard of Facebook, was shocked to hear that his picture has sixty-thousand shares. “Doggone! Yeah that is a pretty good picture of the dog train… I guess it had went out.” Viral sensation or not, Bostick said he will continue to take his hounds out on a ride around the golf course across from his home. Below is a map of the dog train’s route.

“Well even though it has slowed down, I do at least take the dogs train riding once a week – usually on a Monday or Tuesday,” he said. “Because the dogs do love it. They look forward to it.”