Thursday, July 07, 2005
Cream Cheese
Yesterday, the staff alerted me to a situation. A dog had been found and was being held near our Oakland facility, wearing our tags. We figured it must be a dog we adopted out, so I called the contact person and told them I would be over.Why I did that, I'm not sure. I could have said that they should contact Oakland Animal Services and have the dog picked up. This way the owner would be sure to find it and be charged the appropriate impound and reclaim fee.
But I didn't. (Somedays my mouth is quicker than my brain.) I just grabbed a leash, hopped in my car and drove the 5 blocks to the address I was given. Sure enough, there was a small, old, slightly worn out and scraped up white dog wearing our rabies' tag and an OAS license. After avoiding me for a bit, I was able to get him in the car and we went back to the shelter.
I tried to look up the rabies' tag number, but it was too old. (Our records only go back 6 years.) Next, I called OAS to see if they could look up the dog license number. Success! They gave me the owner's name and number and I called. I reached him right away. The dog had gotten out during the festivities and noise of July 4th and they had been looking all over for him. The owner told me he would be right over.
Sure enough, they came to get him. The scrapes and bruises on his body were not from the last two days of mischief, but were the result of being alive for the last 20 years. The dog was 20 years old. Oh. My. God. A 20 year old dog is going to have some scrapes and bruises, I guess.
I was glad there was a quick and happy ending to the story for this dog. He was with us only about 30 minutes and we called him Cream Cheese.
