The Sewing Mom

As Be Kind to Animals Week comes to an end, I am reminded of a couple of an incident that happened to our Siberian Huskey several years ago, something I will never forget.

My husband and I purchased our Siberian Huskey puppy when he was only 6 months old and we loved him from the first time we laid eyes on him. He was a beautiful dog, with blue eyes and he was so intelligent. He was very easilty trained and so lovable, he was so happy just being with us. Well, that is, unless he was given the opportunity to run. I had never really thought about Huskies as being a running dog, but let me tell you, if he was given the chance, he would run at break neck speeds, for miles. We learned early on that we could not let him off the leash when we were out at a park or beach because he would immediately take off running and, no matter what we did, he wouldn’t come back.

Not to long after we had moved to Houston, something terrible happened. By this time, our dog Dakota was about 2 years old. He’d been in the kitchen with me keeping me company when he decided he needed to go outside. So, I let him out in the fenced back yard. What I didn’t realize was that the phone company had been out and had left the back gate open. Of course, Dakota took the opportunity to escape without me even realizing it. After several minutes, I opened the back door to see where he was and realized he was gone. I was devastated. It was pouring rain and I took off on foot looking for him, unsuccessfully. I spent the next few days calling and visiting shelters, vet offices and clinics and didn’t find him. Finally, after just about giving up, a vet called me to let me know that a huskey, matching the description of Dakota, had been brought in several days earlier after being hit by a small truck and he would have the guy that brought him in give me a call. To my amazement, the guy did call and it was indeed Dakota. I was so thankful that the guy driving the truck had stopped, picked him up and taken him to the vet. Dakota had a broken leg, but he was back home.

Back then, I had never heard of microchipping an animal. This is a method of tagging a pet with a permanent chip that can’t fall off or become illegible. It gives the pet an amazing chance of being returned to its owner if it should become lost. I really think it could have helped me find Dakota more quickly and saved me so much worry. Visit the Home Again Web Site to learn more about microchipping and their national pet-recovery services. I can tell you from personal experience, it’s a terrible, gut wrenching feeling when your beloved pet goes missing.

Because this is Be Kind to Animals Week, you may also want to visit www.bringpetshome.com a fundraising Web site specifically created to help shelter animals. A portion of every purchase made through their website goes directly to help shelters around the country provide food and medical care to the hundreds of thousands of pets brought into shelters every year. Plus, for each pet registered, HomeAgain will make the donation through www.bringpetshome.com.

I wish I had a photo on this computer of Dakota, he passed away about 4 years ago, in his sleep, as a result of old age. We miss him every day and we were always thankful that he was returned to us.