We had a stray dog in our house for a day. She was a sweetheart … rambunctious, but a good girl.
It began with a knock on the door one evening and a neighbor asking if our Edie girl was home. As the dogs go nuts barking when anyone knocks, her location was evident. On the sidewalk in front of our house a young man was holding a shiny black lab by the collar talking to people in the neighborhood, looking for the owner.
She had three tags, one for a microchip, one from a Glenn county vaccination clinic, and the other had her dog license number for Glenn county. No name, no owner’s phone number.
As we debated what to do, I said we had a gate to our backyard, so we could keep her safe. Which is how she ended up spending the night with us. Our little Nora belle loved having a new partner in play, even though she was a bit scared of how much larger her new black lab playmate was. Edie was friendly, but a bit put off by the high energy stuff. She growled a few times, establishing her turf.
As the animal shelter was closed (for the next two days!) we called the non-emergency police line, who told us even the shelter’s drop off cages were closed due to flooding from the recent rains.
So it looked like she would be spending the night with us. As she had a sturdy pink collar, we called her Pinky.
She certainly was hungry. She snarfed everything we put down for her. She went on our regularly scheduled walks that night and the next morning. She was pretty well-behaved, and generally attentive, looking to us for signals as to what was expected, and slept upstairs with us. She started to fit right in.
I called the police the next morning, and they said they would send someone around. Which was when I realized I wanted to have a picture of her. So I tried and tried, but she generally kept her nose down, and when I did call her and she looked at me, by the time I hit the cell phone shutter she was looking down again!
I realized I was getting attached to her. We definitely did not need a third dog and a lot of big puppy energy! But when the cop showed up and I answered all the questions for his report, before she obediently hopped into the caged enclosure in the back of the police car, I realized I was going to miss her. I asked the officer to let us know what happened for her.
But no one called. So the next day the animal shelter was open I visited and asked. They had had a lot of dogs turned in, but figured out which one I was asking about. They had contacted her owner, who was still in the area and had picked her up.
Good luck Pinky—whatever your other name is. Whatever happens in canine memory, I hope you remember us as fondly as we remember you, and I hope you have a good long life. Oh, and after about three dozen tries, I finally got my picture.
She’s a cutie! We had a dog show up at our house once, and we kept him in the front yard, since Genevieve was old and blind at the time and a strange dog in the house was too much for her. She had a county license, but it was weekend or after hours. I was able to get in touch with someone at animal services, but he was too busy to come pick her up. I said, that’s OK, do you have her phone number or address? He gave them to me, I called, they finally got home and found their gate open, and came to get the dog. We named him Rags. He seemed like a good boy. I wish we could have brought him inside and been more hospitable to him, but at least he was safe and had food and water. We do always make sure our dogs have tags with our phone number. I hope both Rags’ people and Pinky’s people have come to that decision as well.
J, good to hear from you! The logic I’ve heard for not including a name or number on the dog tag is that some stranger could discover both and use the info to 1) call the dog away, or 2) find your phone number.
Both seem suspicious to the edge of paranoia to me, but just when you think the world couldn’t really be that devious and cruel you hear of awful things happening. I’m with you, our dogs’ tags have names and phone numbers, and I think the odds are strongly against any trouble. But I understand how fearful people can be.