Microchips Bring Two More Dogs Home
This past Christmas eve in Bentonville, Arkansas, Police Sgt. Robert Burkhart found a hound mix mutt lying still on the side of a busy road. The dog had been hit by a car, and showed little signs of life. With no collar or tags, her fate was measured in hours. Police in Bentonville have injured dogs euthanized, if they have no identification.
But emergency veterinarian Darlene Wier has a policy – “No dogs .. die on Christmas Eve.”
Using a scanner, she found the stray dog’s ticket home buried in the skin under her neck – a tiny microchip, no larger than a grain of rice. The chip contained the name, address and contact information of the stray – and also her name, Coaster. Coaster had been adopted by her owner, Stephanie Comstock, from a local animal shelter two years earlier. Coaster had bolted while being walked along Comstock’s other dogs, and less than hour after she went missing, she lay at the side of the road, struck down by a car. Comstock and her children searched frantically, but found no sign of the missing dog until the phone call came in telling her that Coaster was safe – if not completely sound – and waiting to come home.
Comstock is grateful her dog is implanted with a microchip.
“This is the first dog we had that had a chip in it. Before, when you lost a dog, it was just gone. So to have the chip in there and to be able to get them back is just great,” Comstock said.
The microchip planted between Coaster’s shoulders meant that Comstock could tell her kids that their dog was alive and well.
Half a country away, up in Canada, another dog was heading home to its owner – almost seven years after it went missing.
On December 25th, 2001, Don French of Jutenheim Rottweilers was the proud breeder of a gorgeous litter of Rotties. He chose his own ‘Christmas gift’ from this litter, a pick male that he hoped to eventually show in conformation and obedience. Five months later, while Don was out grocery shopping, someone stole Don’s puppy out of his fenced back yard. Months of searching proved fruitless – the dog was no where to be found. Don reported the theft to the police and the Canadian Kennel Club, but as the years passed, he gave up hope of ever getting the pup back home.
Flash forward to December 22, 2008. Don French, now living in Burlington and working and no longer breeding Rottweilers, received a call from Hamilton Animal Control. A stray Rottweiler had been found roaming the streets, and Don was listed on the dog’s microchip as a contact person. Don is now a professional dog trainer – his first thought was that one of his training clients had put his contact info on their dog’s chip registration form. When Don asked who the owner of the stray Rottweiler was, Animal Control replied “According to the CKC, you’re the owner and breeder”. Puzzled and operating on a long shot, Don looked up the registration information for the boy he’d help whelp, almost exactly seven years earlier.
The chip numbers matched – the stray dog languishing in a run at Animal Control was Don’s stolen Rottie.
Hamilton Animal Control has no idea where the dog came from, or where he’s been. The dog looks to be in good shape – well fed and well cared for – so Don speculates that perhaps the puppy was sold to a family who had no idea that they were actually harboring stolen goods. Either way, no one but Don ever turned up at Animal Control to claim him, so on Boxing Day Don picked up and brought him home. Don says that Santo – Jotunheims Kaga vom Santo – might be seven years old, but that he’s still acting like a puppy. Don is considering putting him in the conformation ring, just for fun.
With all the news stories of pets reunited with owners thanks to microchips, it’s only puzzling that more owners at willing to have their pets implanted. Doing so could possibly be the best Christmas gift you ever give – to yourself, or to your pet.
“The main benefit of having the microchip is so (veterinarians) can easily locate the owners if a dog or cat is found. With the chips, the dogs can be found and returned home,” Sugar Creek office manager Melissa Freeman said.
“Collars can get loose and fall off or if the dog is stolen, the collar can easily be taken off – but the microchip cannot be removed,” Freeman said.
“(Coaster) is a lucky dog,” Wier said, noting that all pet owners should have their dogs and cats microchipped. “We love a microchip.”
More of Coaster’s story here, or read our own microchip miracle story here.
Dogs Worshipping False Idols – The Trend Goes Global
It was with a sinking heart that I ran across this Family Circus Sunday comic strip on the Comics Curmudgeon website —
Comics Curmudgeon does his best to interpret the (as usual) indecipherable gibberish that is a Family Circus cartoon, with the following sentence:
“Barfy the dog is apparently unable to distinguish between a round-headed lump with an eternal dumb grin on its face and not a single thought in its head and a snowman”
Oh, if this were only true. To FrogDog Blog readers, this scenario screams of one thing, and one thing only – canine idol worship, a growing trend of global proportions.
Yes, Barfy, family dog of the decidedly Christian Keene family, is laying down an offering at the foot of his new Snow God. Bowing in worship, Barfy prays for his release from a world composed of round headed children, dead floating grandparents, and trite witicisms that would make Lol Cats look like Dorothy Parker.
What horrible vengeance will Barfy’s snow God unleash on the Keene world, if he ever rises to do Barfy’s bidding? I have no idea, but it would sure be awesome to find out.
Abandoned Pugs in Nanaimo, BC Puzzle Authorities
A strange spate of Pug abandonments have been taking place across a picturesque town on the eastern shore of Vancouver Island. Nanaimo, BC shelter worker Helen Roberts says that in more than 20 years of experience, she’s never seen anything like it.
The abandonment took place over the course of the month of December, and all the dogs involved were young, intact female Pugs with a variety of health problems. Authorities are now speculating that this was a case of a puppy mill dumping off breeding stock that they had no further use for.
The first two pugs were found wandering near Nanaimo’s Country Club Center mall, the first on December 13th, the second on December 29th. A third pug was discovered at the same location at a later, unspecified date in December. The fourth pug was found near another Nanaimo mall, The North Town Center, also on December 29th. All of the found dogs were dirty, malnourished, parasite infested and in need of attention.
It’s baffling that anyone with enough knowledge to breed and raise pugs would be unaware that there are a myriad of homes in Canada waiting to take in unwanted adults, even those with health issues. British Columbia has a well organized Pug Club and rescue group, who I’m sure would have been happy to help. Instead, someone dumped these girls unceremoniously in the snow, in the coldest month of the year, and left them to fend for themselves.
Two of the dogs have found new homes through the Nanaimo and District SPCA, one has been adopted by the person who found it, and the final Puglette is awaiting a new home at Walker’s Animal Rescue in Nanaimo. Let’s hope that the new lives they’ve found are better than the ones they’ve left behind them.