So, something that happened last night made me think of this... Do you leave your dogs collars (with ID tags, etc.) on all the time?Â
Let me explain...
We had a "found" doggy at our house last night. Scott was returning from getting a haircut before work yesterday, and came across a dog running thru the yards along a busy street in our neighborhood. He was able to get the dog into the car and bring it back to our house so that he could try to contact the owner. The dog was wearing a collar with a license on it, but no other identification
. We were able to call Animal Control and get a phone number for the owner based on the license tag...Â
And that got me thinking - do your dogs normally have their collars on all the time?Â
Right now, our dogs like to be naked unless they are actually going for a walk or somewhere else outside the house. When Scott and I are both not at home, they stay inside the well-secured house, and we have never really felt like they needed to wear their collars just to hang around and chill. We take every precaution to insure that they will be safe and never "get out"... But last night I was thinking WHAT IF...Â
What if someone broke into the house and the dogs escaped? What if a water line broke and a neighbor busted into the house to try to fix it (this actually just happened in our neighborhood) and the dogs got out? Just... WHAT IF? They wouldn't have their collars on, and they wouldn't be identifiable until someone actually scanned their microchips. Plus are people more likely to try to pull over and help a dog that they see has a collar and tags on, than they are a dog that looks "stray"? So now I feel like we need to leave their collars on all the time, just in case...
What do you guys think? Are your dogs always "dressed" and carrying some form of ID?Â
(BTW - the lost doggy did get home. His name was Roper and he was a Dobie mix. We left a million messages on his owners machine, and finally called Animal Control back and finagled an address out of them. Scott went by with Roper, while I stayed home with our guys (who were totally freaked out that they might be getting a new brother, and who is that, and why is he in the back yard, and why can't we play with him or (in Ranger's case) pretend we want to play with him and then try to kill him?). A neighbor told him that Roper gets out pretty often. His owner is an older lady, and this time while she was trying to round him up, she fell and hurt herself badly enough to need a trip to the hospital. Roper was put into his backyard (with a doggy door into his house), to wait for his owner to come back that night. When the neighbor picked the owner up at the hospital, they swung by PetCo to thank Scott for rescuing Roper. Scott said the poor lady's face was all beat up and bruised from her fall.... Â
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