Viral video shows 70-pound dog being picked up, swirled around by possible dust devil

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22 August 2018, Germany, Heinersdorf: A so-called dust devil whirls up dust from a dry field. A dust devil is a vortex with a vertical axis, which usually has a diameter of only a few meters and can reach several dozen meters into the sky. Photo: Pat

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HARRISONBURG, Va. - Duke the 70-pound Labrador took an unexpected flight off the ground this week in Virginia.

Brittnay Wampler tells WHSV that she was at work when her dog Duke was outside playing. Some windy weather came through and that's when Duke was picked up, spun around in the air, and landed back on the ground.

The wild moment was caught on her neighbor's doorbell camera.

"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. "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."

Wampler says Duke was not hurt.

"I just couldn’t quit watching," Wampler said of the video. "He’s been coined Duke the Flying Dog at our house. The kids joke about buying him a cape," Wampler told The Dodo.

The National Weather Service defines a dust devil as a "small, rapidly rotating wind that is made visible by the dust, dirt or debris it picks up. Also called a whirlwind, it develops best on clear, dry, hot afternoons."

MORE NEWS: VIDEO: Apopka dust devil rips shingles off roof, tosses goat pen in air

"Definitely looks like a dust devil to us," The National Weather Service for Baltimore/Washington tweeted after seeing the video.

Back in April, a reported dust devil spun through the backyard of a Central Florida firefighter, flipping her baby goat pen in the air.

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