Sunday, June 25, 2006
It will happen again.
Well...we knew it would happen. We knew it from the beginning. It wasn't a question of 'if'...it was only a question of 'when'. And then it happened.Friday night. Somewhere in Oakland. A dog on our Paws to Consider program got lost. (We started this program over a year ago. It allows people to take a dog or cat home for a "test drive" before making the life time committment to adopt them. The dog or cat is still legally ours, but they get to spend a week with him or her to see how things go. Most of didn't fall in love with our spouse or partner in an hour, so we think our furry friends deserve an equal chance of finding the right match.)
We got the call Friday evening, but it happened sometime in the morning. Left outside, unattended with the resident dog for an hour, they pulled the gate back and escaped. The resident dog came back, but our dog did not. Unfortunately, they had taken off the collar and id tag we had given them, but the dog was microchipped (as all animals in our program are.)
Luckily, that night our shelter manager put up "lost dog" signs in the neighborhood and the next morning, a neighbor called saying she had the dog and all was well.
Do we get rid of the program because one dog gets lost? Gosh, no. Many otherwise unlucky dogs and cats got their perfect home through this great program. Do we continue to educate our clients about not leaving dogs outside unattended even for a moment, especially when the dog is new? For sure.
And I'm sure it will happen again...
