ID Required

After resisting years of intense lobbying for a family dog by her two daughters, one of my friends recently brought home a rescue dog. Within the first two days, I fielded at least five requests for information from my friend, her husband, and her older daughter. The family had done a lot of research and preparation for the dog’s arrival, but there is nothing like the nonstop, real-time activity of a new dog in your home to make you realize that there are many things you don’t know about dog care and training.

Most of the inquiries I received concerned behavior that I would consider fairly typical for a rehomed adult dog with an unknown background – stuff like urine-marking in the house, jumping up on the couch, barking at every person who walks in the door, etc. But on the third day following the dog’s adoption, I got a question that surprised me – at least, once I understood what was going on.“What should we do if he runs away from us?” my friend asked. I started explaining how the family should keep the new dog on a leash or long-line (to prevent the dog from practicing the unwanted behavior of avoidance) and offer treats and praise every time the dog comes to them (to reinforce that coming to the family members is a good thing). “No!” my friend interrupted. “He’s run away; we can’t find him!”

Yikes! Okay, I thought, I had better get more information before answering these questions. “Alright, don’t panic,” I told my friend. “Is your number or the rescue group’s number on his ID tag?”“He doesn’t have any tags on,” my friend replied. “We just got him a new collar and we don’t have a new tag yet.”After dispensing as much useful advice as I could (call all your neighbors, send all available volunteers out to look for him ASAP, put up signs, call animal control, etc.), I hung up the phone and sat in my office for a while, stewing. Days before, when my friend had called to tell me they were bringing home a rescue dog, why hadn’t I told her to put an ID tag (with current phone numbers) on the dog and to make sure it was on 24/7? I guess because it would never occur to me not to!

In the past three months, I’ve picked up four lost dogs. I found two of them, a month apart, in a far backwoods setting. Both wore collars; neither had ID. I took both to my local shelter. Very recently, I found two four-month-old German Shepherds running lost in a Bay Area city. Both wore collars; one had a tag, which turned out to be from the breeder of the puppies. Fortunately, this number led to the puppies’ owner, who had “been meaning to” buy tags but hadn’t gotten around to it.

I know that three of these five dogs got home. My friend found her family’s new dog and got a tag for him that day. The GSD puppies got new tags, too; I had them made on one of those great machines at a chain pet supply store and delivered them to the owner an hour after I brought her puppies home. I don’t know the fate of the two backwoods dogs, but I pray their owners found them in the shelter.

-Nancy Kerns