It’s been a funny week for me, dog-wise.
When I was jogging in the village where I live the other day, I spotted a white Shih Tzu who was obviously wandering around, lost.
I approached the little doggie, said hi and asked him if he was lost. He approached me, licked my hand and jumped up on my lap.
A lap dog, I thought to myself as I looked around to see if there was anyone looking for the cutie.
In a few minutes, I saw a young girl looking for something. I asked her if she was looking for her dog and she gave me a worried look, saying yes. I asked if her doggie was white and a Shih Tzu. She smiled and said yes.
Doggie found. Human happy.
* * *
Last Monday, our neighbor’s dog crossed the wall that divides our houses and decided to take residence in our garden.
Since our household is familiar with the neighbor’s dog, we allowed him to spend time there.
On early Tuesday morning before I left for work, I decided to try and see if I could coax the doggie to come with me so that I could take him home.
I tried, but the doggie didn’t seem to want to come. I decided not to force it and let the doggie take residence in our garden until help from the neighbor came.
The doggie got picked up by the neighbor’s driver a little later that morning.
* * *
And then I got this e-mail from vet Mayem Yao of Pendragon, who informed me about how important it is that dogs be micro-chipped so that if ever they get lost, their humans will be able to find them a little more easily.
Here’s vet Mayem’s story:
“On April 28, a Siberian Husky living in the Makati area found its way out of his house. The owners of the dog say he saw something outside the house and scampered off to follow it.
Later that day, a concerned citizen saw the Husky running along EDSA going towards Ortigas. She took a video of the dog while trying to follow it by car, although the dog was on the other side of the road. She then posted the video on Facebook.
Members of Compassion And Responsibility for Animals (CARA) and other people eventually caught wind of the missing Husky. Eventually Elvis (the Husky’s name) was found in one of the MRT stations in the Ortigas area.
He was picked up and the Mandaluyong Animal Shelter (MAS) was notified. Lian Ascalon was there to handle the inquiry. They had wanted to leave the Husky with the shelter, to which Lian was hesitant since she knew that Elvis would be at risk of heat stroke if he stayed at the shelter. She then asked the people that got him if they could hold on to him for at least a day (since their office was air-conditioned), while she looked for a place for him or a way to find his owners.
Lian and Pendragon have been working in close coordination with MAS. MAS dogs have also been micro-chipped by VetAID Inc.
At the time, Lian’s primary worry was that she would have a lot of people asking to take Elvis in since he was a purebred dog, and she would not be able to properly identify who exactly was Elvis’ owner.
But Lian had already heard about the Husky missing in Makati through the FB video. She then tried to reach the person that posted the video. Eventually Lian received a call from someone who claimed to be the owner of the dog; unfortunately, he could not give any proof of ownership and he did not have any photos of his dog that could at least identify that the dog was his. Luckily, he mentioned that his dogs were micro-chipped with the VetAID microchips and that he had gotten the chip through Pendragon Veterinary Clinic.
This was when Lian realized that she could confirm ownership of the husky through the VetAID microchip. Once she had the micro-chipped number on hand, she confirmed with the VetAID database the details of the owner and was able to coincide the information with the caller that claimed he owned Elvis.
Once that was cleared, Elvis was then released and reunited with his owner.
* * *
So, what’s the moral of this article?
Nothing earthshaking, really — just that it might be a good idea to get every doggie micro-chipped, that way just in case they wander far from home they can be found and reunited with their humans.
’Nuff said.