Lost Dog? An Important Lesson About Dog ID
How do you feel when you’ve lost something important? Or think you’ve lost it? Panicky!
I thought I’d lost Arwen, my beautiful puppy. And this serves as a lesson to other dog owners and would-be dog owners.
It had been raining heavily and I decided to dash out between very black clouds for an evening walk. We went round the old ironworks, where the iron ore used to be smelted. This area now is kind of a nature reserve. Nature has reclaimed part of the area around what the locals call ‘ the slag bank’. It’s still very stony on the top, but around the sides and the base there’s some nice bush and grass coverage where the rabbits can hide.
It takes about 35 minutes to go round, so a small walk for us. And it’s a fairly enclosed, and very familiar area. Because the clouds looked horrible, I know the walk well, and we were likely to be quite short on a rain-free window, I just loaded the dogs in the car without their usual collars and tags.
About two thirds of the way round I realised Arwen wasn’t with me. So I backtracked in a panic, shouting for her.
After about 5 minutes I spied a very perplexed, lost looking little girl. She was very pleased to see us all. She must have spied something to run after. It’s the first time she’s ever been away for that length of time.
So what do we learn from this?
- First – even if you’re not required to microchip in your country, do it. It can be literally a life-saver if your dog is lost and ends up in a dog pound or at a police station. Many dogs that remain unclaimed after quite a short period are put up for adoption or simply euthanised.
- Second - always have a collar and tag on your dog when out walking. However familiar the area, or however short the walk, there is always the risk that your dog could slip away, be distracted or simply get frightened by something and run off.
Many people don’t like leaving collars on dogs at home in case they get their feet caught in them, or get the collars caught on something, and can’t get free. So if you have your dog microchipped, it also serves as a constant ‘collar and tag’ for indoors/at home as well.
Plus lots of dogs get stolen from their homes and sold on. You quite often see posters up with things like ’Stolen from garden – Flake, chocolate labrador, reward for safe return’. So microchipping of a pure breed, especially a hunting or working one, is definitely recommended.
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