A Tale of Two (Lost) Dogs

By Caroline Coile Ph.D.

This is the story of two dogs. Neither had any relationship to each other except for an oversight on their owners’ parts—an oversight with harrowing consequences. One has a happy ending; one does not.

Hero

Hero is a black and tan saluki male owned by Anne Mayea of Phoenix, Oregon. He was one of those dogs that everybody in the saluki world just sort of knew. We watched him via Facebook as he grew from a promising pup to a mature contender. We read of him going off to shows with a handler now and then, but mostly we saw him going for runs and doing other “real dog” things.

So everybody wished Anne good luck as she announced that Hero, now four years old, had packed his bags and was off with his handler to shows in Southern California and then the big specialties in Arizona.

Hero had been gone three days when Anne received a telephone call from the distraught handler: “Hero jumped the fence. He’s been gone an hour now. We can’t find him.”

The handler’s friends searched and put up posters. Facebook saluki friends prepared to help. But it was too late. Later that afternoon a dog matching Hero’s description was found dead on the Interstate near where he was last seen. A pall hung over the saluki world as hopes of his recovery changed to mourning.

Anne was devastated. She tried to make arrangements to have Hero cremated, but that was proving difficult. Nobody could seem to locate the body.

Then the handler received a curious call. A shelter worker had seen the posters and thought they might match a dog they’d taken in about seven miles away from the handler’s home. That didn’t make sense. Hero’s body had already been identified—or had it? Realization struck: nobody who knew Hero personally had actually seen the body. The body hadn’t had a microchip—but neither had Hero. Neither did this new Hero wannabe who had now been sitting in the shelter for over a day. It was worth a try…

And there, like Lazarus returned from the dead, sat Hero! The call was made to a stunned Anne, tears of joy flowed, and Hero was soon back in loving arms! And, double-security fencing…

The story could so easily have ended otherwise. Had that shelter worker not been aware of this particular lost dog, had she believed the news that his body had been found, had she not made the extra effort to find contacts who were no longer looking for him, nobody would have come to claim Hero. With no microchip or other identification, Hero would waited and waited for a family who assumed he was dead.

By the way, the dead dog was eventually identified. It was a Doberman Pinscher.

Hero is now microchipped. And doesn’t go to shows without his owner!

Orion

Not all I-never-got-around-to-microchipping have such a happy ending. Mary Pierce, of Fox Lake, Illinois, assumed that after 16 years, it was a little late to worry about microchipping her Italian Greyhound, Orion. After all, he’d never needed one so far, and it’s not as though he went many places at his age. But one day Orion slipped out the door and for whatever reason decided to tour the neighborhood. Pierce, who uses a wheelchair, contacted the local police and animal control as well as the closest veterinary clinic, with no results. She scoured the neighborhood, finally locating a woman who said she’d spotted the dog near a house about a block from Pierce’s home. But inquiries to those residents went unanswered.

She found out why several days later.

The home belonged to an off-duty deputy. He reported that the dog was in poor shape, with his ribs showing, toenails overgrown, back painful when touched, teeth bad and breath “fetid.” He also had no identification tags. Not knowing the dog’s age and unfamiliar with the sighthound physique, the deputy assumed he was malnourished and possibly abused. He took Orion to his veterinarian, who checked him for a microchip. There was none. The veterinarian agreed the dog was in poor shape, and upon the deputy’s request, euthanized it. This happened within less than an hour after finding the dog.

Had Orion been microchipped he could have been reunited with his owner. His breed and age would have been known. He would still be alive.

Orion dodged the proverbial bullet for 16 years. Until one day he didn’t.

It’s never too late to microchip—unless you wait until you need it.

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Posted by admin on Aug 15 2018. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.