Last night about 10:30 PM, a dog started barking rather persistently outside our back yard. We went out and saw her running back and forth and jumping against the fence, barking and semi-growling. We went over to the fence and she started to calm down a little.
She had a collar and tags, but no leash. After we got her settled down a little, we took a closer look at her tags. She had two tags for rabies shots (yay) and one tag with the name and phone number of her vet, but nothing with her name or the phone number of her owners.
I called the phone number for the vet, but they were closed as expected. Their message gave me the option to transfer to another animal hospital, but that place didn’t have a way to match the numbers on the rabies shot tags to the owner.
Our neighbor has a dog, so she brought out some dog food and we got her some water. She scarfed down the food pretty quickly and drank some of the water.
We figured that someone was probably out looking for her, so we didn’t want to put her in the garage or in our yard. After a few minutes, it was clear that she had no respect for the street (she didn’t stay out of it) so we decided to put her on a long leash and attached it to the outside of the fence (it was a warm night). And with her on the outside, her owners could get her easily if they came by looking for her.
She seemed very comfortable on the leash and happily trotted around back there for a while, so we went on to bed.
Then around 12:45 AM or so, the barking started again.
I waited it out for about 10 minutes, then thought it was probably disturbing the neighbors so I went down to say ‘hi’ and petted her a bit. I think what got her going again were the sprinklers coming on. She wasn’t wet, but the grass was and she probably wasn’t very happy about lying down in wet grass. By the time I’d gotten back to bed, she started barking again.
I didn’t want her to be barking all night, keeping us and the neighbors awake, so I went back out to take her for a walk. When she saw me coming back, she got really excited and ran to jump up on me to say hello. Not being a dog owner, I didn’t have the reflexes to cover up, so one of her paws landed, um, in a rather sensitive area.
This is one strong dog with a lot of energy. It was about 1:00 AM when we went for a walk and she was running about, sniffing everything and straining on the leash (though she would come back if I jerked on the leash, and generally did a good job avoiding trees and other things to get wrapped around).
A half hour later I was regretting wearing flip flops for this excursion. Sprinklers were on all over the neighborhood and my feet were getting plenty wet. We got back to the fence and I attached the leash to it again. The grass was still quite wet, but we’d put out a piece of cardboard for her and I hoped she’d be ready to sleep on that.
By the time I’d gotten back inside, the barking and some whimpering had started up again. It was around this time that it occurred to me that this dog was probably used to sleeping inside, not outside. We’d initially nixed the idea of putting her in the garage for several reasons: we wanted her owners to be able to get her if they came by, and she was going a little crazy out there in the yard and we weren’t sure if she’d be unhappy and perhaps destructive in the garage. It was a little around 2:10 AM when I decided to put her in the garage.
I brought her into the garage, shortened and attached her leash in the corner, and put some rags down on the floor for her to lie down on. I went inside to get her some water and she seemed very comfortable being in the garage – no barking or complaining.
I went back upstairs and climbed into bed around 2:40 AM.
This morning, I came downstairs (still feeling very sleepy) and opened to te door to the garage to find a happy and excited looking dog wagging her tail at me, ready to play. There was no damage to the garage and she apparently is well house-trained, no accidents. 🙂
I called the vet’s office when they opened and gave them the rabies shot #s.
"Is it a Sharpei?"
"I dunno, it looks like a lab."
"Hold on, I’m calling her owner."
A few minutes later, I was on the phone with the dog’s owner. He came and picked her up, said a quick ‘thanks’ and that was it.
All this, and I still don’t know the dog’s name.
Pretty dog.
I agree with Michael. That’s a beautiful specimen.
About time to get a dog, Alex? I think this is a sign!
That is a definite possibility. 🙂
I agree. Time to get a dog.
Makes for a interesting sleepless night.
Wonder if the dog runs off a lot? i’d think most owners would be pretty ecstatic that someone took their lost dog in and worked to contact them.
Two things:
1. Doesn’t look remotely like a sharpei to me. Maybe lab, or doberman.
2. I posted once on my weblog about a found dog. You’ll get spidered by a lot of pet websites search engines and get tons of emails asking about whether or not they can adopt this dog or if you have another dog that they can adopt. Just a heads up.
I don’t know if this will mean anything to you or not. But if you’re looking for a dog you might want to consider a border collie. I wouldn’t have thought much about this breed except that this weekend a friend of ours brought one to a BBQ/picnic. I’ve never seen a dog that was more alert, intelligent or as energetic (in a good way) than this one. You’d throw a frisbee and if you threw it even half-right this dog would run after it, jump up and catch it out of the air — and then would bring it right back to the owner or whoever was playing with the dog. The dog also had a very sweet disposition.
Ryan: I agree, I expected a more enthusiastic thank you; maybe a reward offer (which I would have declined).
danithew: A border collie is a fun dog, but they have too much energy (and hair) for a small yard/inside dog.
It’s sad when such a gorgeous dog has owners that are so carefree (reckless) as that. For the owner not be extremely grateful to you for taking in their dog and keeping it off of the streets really shows what kind of a person they are. I can only hope they don’t have kids. You’re a good guy for losing a nights sleep to taking care of a complete strangers dog.
It almost sounds like he wasn’t happy to have her back. I hope this dog isn’t ‘lost’ again in the near future, possibly without tags.
I have a black lab mix and from the photos she looks to be something similar. A little too small to be a pure breed. Beautiful dog though.
He seemed happy to get her back, and the dog seemed happy to see him. I don’t mean to make him sound like a bad guy, he said that they had company over last night who left the gate open and that they drove around last night looking for her. It was kind of odd that he didn’t ask anything about how I found her, when or what happened while I had her.
Good story to read this morning after coming in to work. 🙂 Glad to see he got back to his owner even if you probably would have been a better owner.
Nice story.
Tempted
On Friday I golfed with an older gentleman that has a miniature australian shepherd puppy. Today we went over to his house to meet ‘Buddy’. Buddy was pretty awesome, he’s a small dog that can play like a big dog and was very sweet tempered. Th…
Woah…I would NOT have gotten near a dog like that. To tell the truth, I’m a cat person. Anyway, it’s a lovely dog… good thing it had rabies shots though! *shudder*… interesting story connecting with rabies if you’d like to hear it Alex. Anyway. If I were an owner of a dog, and someone found my dog I’d tell whomever found it great thanks, and depending on my pocket cash at the time offer a handsome reward, maybe $100 or more depending on how special the dog was, which it most likely was rather special or the person wouldn’t’ve bothered to pick it up.
Rambled on long enough–‘bye. And if you want to hear the rabies story, e-mail me. It’s quite funny actually.
Found Another Dog
I found another dog this morning. This time I was out taking Noonan for a walk and saw the dog running loose. It came over to us about a block from our house so I picked up my pup (she still doesn’t have all her shots) and carried her home. Then I c…
[…] I’m not sure what kind of dog she is, some kind of pincher/retriever cross? Not sure, anyways… read the full story over at alexking.org called simply Found Dog […]
Those are really good pictures. You seem to find alot of dogs! I dunno why someone said they would not aproach a dog like that, does not look like an aggresive breed. Though I do agree, rewards are important, and am surprised that it was lacking
Hi Alex, My name is Greg Miller and I am working with a gentleman named Simon Wilby. He is a pet lover and heavily involved in pet rescues in Alberta Canada. Recently he invented an amazing device called "TheHearNow" two way pet communication system . It consists of a collar and a hand held radio, and has the following features:
a 12 mile range.
Call Owner button.
GPS Tracking.
GEO-Fence capabilities.
LED Lights with 2 mile viability.
Collar & Harness for Dogs & Cats
Bridle for horses.
More…
With this new device I’ll bet that lost pets will be a thing of the past. For more information on this product or to contact Simon Wilby
I hope this isn’t considered spam. I have been searching for anything related to lost pets to get the work out on this device.
Greg Miller
Sounds like that new Pet cellphone they make now, only without all the bells and whistles.What happens if my dog is out of range? how long does the battery last?
its good to know that there are still people like you who go out of their way just to help some poor lost dog…