I had a really awesome and fun filled weekend and I plan to blog about it later but first I wanted to tell my small story of how two people that love animals can change a life in less than 4 hours.
Meet Harley.
When my cousin Katie, her 3 year old daughter Kat and I were leaving her house around noon on Saturday to head to the fair he walked up to us, tail wagging, and climbed into her car along side Kat. We were both kind of shocked but got him out easily enough and I started right away to walk the street in the direction he’d come from to see if I could spot any open gates, garages or front doors. Since it was a Saturday, there were a lot of all three! Katie went and got some dog treats to keep him from wandering off till we could find his family.
After being told to try farther down the street three times, and one neighbor saying they’d seen him hanging around for “a few days”, including jumping into his father’s truck, we decided to lock him in Katie’s back yard and head over to a close by PetSmart where there were two local rescues holding an adoption event to see if we could get him a temporary home. I’d tried to call the ASPCA already but they were totally full. So BOTH rescues said they were full too and to try the shelter. Unfortunately, it’s a high kill shelter and neither Katie or I were willing to drop this SWEET, ADORABLE, GENTLE boy off at a kill shelter. Somebody had to love this dog!
By this time Kat was DONE WITH THIS DOG! She’d been pretty patient up till then so we decided to head to the fair and continue to make calls to see what we could do. I called two more shelters, used my phone to check Craigslist, local papers and Facebook groups and nobody had reported him lost or stolen that I could see.
I called Ben because I was getting concerned and he told me that if we could not find a safe place for the dog to bring him home and we’d see what we could do from here. Feeling a little better we decided while leaving the fair to head over to the shelter with the dog to see if he was chipped. I really thought that since he was not fixed, there was no way that he’d be chipped. BUT HE WAS! I teared up!
The shelter told us his name, called up his humans and soon they were on their way to pick him up! They said we could wait or turn the dog over to them but if they took they dog they’d have to “intake” him and the family would incur charges. We opted to wait for the family. Kat opted to look adorable while waiting.
As soon as Harley saw his humans he became excited for the first time in the 4 hours that we’d spent with him. He practically jumped into his dad’s arms! All 100 pounds of him! It was bitter sweet to tell him goodbye. My heart was already in love with this boy but it was also OVERJOYED to see how happy he was to be around his family.
PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! If you have a collar on your dogs (Harley had one on!) add tags to it! With an address or phone number we’d have had him home in MINUTES! Also, get them chipped just in case they get out of their collars. It’s so cheap and can mean all the difference in the world when it comes to helping a pet find it’s way back home
Hopefully the parents were happy to see him! Did they say how long he’d been gone? Yay for happy endings!
Two days! They said they’d looked all over their neighborhood and put him on a lost dog website (probably the one associated with the chip). They were VERY happy to see him.
That’s so awesome. I’m glad he was chipped and able to reunite with his family. 🙂