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Facts Verse presents... Loggers couldn't believe what they found in the middle of a tree. Loggers have a very dangerous job. It's their responsibility to cut down the tallest of trees and try to do so safely. In most cases, it's just business as usual. The trees come down, they're chopped up, and the wood is sent off. There was one day, though, that it was not business as usual. On this day, the loggers couldn't believe what they found in the middle of a tree. We'll tell you what they found in just a moment. First, help us out. Help us spread the word about Facts Verse by clicking that like button. And also, be sure to subscribe and click the notification bell so you don't miss our future videos. The loggers were working in Georgia Craft Company. The company is located in Jasper, Georgia, and they were working for a paper mill machinery business. It was their job to take down the trees to acquire the wood for paper pulp. This occurred back in 1980. The loggers headed out to a nearby forest to cut down some trees. And in this case, it was an American chestnut tree that they were cutting down. Since chestnut trees grow faster than oak trees, they had been popular for commercial use. Back then, there were plenty of chestnut trees around the United States. Unfortunately, in the 20th century, a fungal infection caused this particular species of tree to go extinct. The surviving trees remain in New Hampshire, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and Nova Scotia, Canada. Chestnut trees have very interesting characteristics too, and it was one of these that caused the experienced loggers to be shocked on this day. On this day, certain trees were marked to be chopped down. It was a grueling task, one that would take most of the day. One of the trees being cut down was hollow on the inside. As soon as a logger hit the trunk with his axe, he realized it was hollow. That's not uncommon for chestnut trees, so the logger continued to cut. As long as they had wood from a chestnut tree, it would still produce high-quality pulp in large quantities, which were important. The loggers continued to chop, not knowing what was inside. When the tree came down, many of the loggers started working to cut into the log and get it on the truck. And it was then that one of the loggers saw something in the hollowed-out trunk. He knew something was there because the light wasn't coming from the truck as it normally would. When the logger told the others what he had seen, they all jumped back in fear. What was inside the trunk was staring back at them. When they looked closer, they saw the creature was a dog. They knew this because it had paws, a long snout, and sharp canine teeth. What made this dog even more creepy was that it looked as if it were frozen. They couldn't figure out how the dog got inside the tree trunk or why it was in the position that it was. Since they had a job to finish, they decided to do it quickly. After careful consideration, the loggers knew that they would lose money if they didn't cut up this trunk. But they realized that this discovery was too amazing, they just couldn't chop it down. Instead, they set it aside, hoping that they could find somebody to check out the dog and try to find its origin. Fortunately, they did know exactly who to call. In 1981, a year after this dog was discovered, the Southern Forest World opened. The museum dedicated itself to the southeastern United States, and the loggers realized that that would be the perfect place to bring their find. Unfortunately, they had to hold on to their amazing find for a year before the museum opened and they heard about it. The loggers brought the find to the facility before they opened the doors. The staff was well aware of how popular the exhibit would be due to its appearance and the way that it was found. Not only did they want to put it on display, they also wanted to find out how the dog got there in the first place. The facility found biological experts to study the dog inside the trunk. The dog had been mummified, so nobody could figure out exactly how this could have happened without using methods that were used in ancient Egypt. Since the museum didn't have any experts on staff to find out the secrets of mummified dogs, they had to search for outside help. Finally, they found Christina Kilgrove, a biological anthropologist from the University of West Florida. She's the one who studied the dog and finally discovered what actually happened to him. She found that the tissue decay is what caused the putrefaction process when the dog died. Since chestnut trees contain tannin, it helped the process along. She believes that the dog was hunting around the tree and then chased something inside. Christina believes the dog was hunting back in the 1960s when it got stuck in the tree and starved to death, which left him stuck in the tree for decades. Today the display stands at the Southern Forest World in Waycross, Georgia and is called Stucky the Mummified Dog. They came up with the name after holding a contest to decide the name of the dog. While Stucky was the name they chose, there were a few other good ones that came in. One runner-up was Chipper and the other was Dogwood. While these names were great, in the end, Stucky was the one that won out. The person who came up with the name Stucky didn't come up with it because the dog was stuck in the log. He actually came up with the name because of the tree trunk's coffin look, it looked like a pecan log which are sold in Stucky's convenience stores. It's something you'd learn if you were to visit the museum. Fortunately, the loggers chose something amazing over just making a few bucks. Had they cut the dog out of the log to make money, this fantastic find would not be on display for the world to see. Subscribe for more!