Short of having an ill pet or one that has to be put to
sleep, a lost pet is probably the most stressful thing to endure. You
can’t help but think the worst. Did she get run over by a car? Did he get eaten
by coyotes? Did someone find them and decide to keep them? Not knowing is the
worst!
Last night we had a knock at our door. We generally avoid
answering the door when we’re not expecting visitors because more often than
not it’s someone trying to sell us lawn care, alarm systems, newspaper
subscriptions, etc.
I looked through the peephole and it appeared it could be
just one of those people but for some reason I couldn't resist opening the door
and seeing what this person wanted.
To my surprise it was a lady handing out flyers about her
friend’s lost cat. It was the same flyer Mrs. Nate and I saw earlier in the day
while walking our boys. We are always sad when we see these posted around the
community.
But this was the first time I had witnessed someone actually
going door to door in an effort to let the neighbourhood know this cat went
missing. Further to that, it wasn't just the owner of the cat knocking on doors
it was her friend. I found this to be touching, the cat owner’s friend wanted
to help after seeing how upset she was by the loss of her feline companion.
We can totally empathize because we've had our share of cats
wander off causing a panic state as we frantically went around the neighborhood
looking for our lost pet.
Heck, the last time was only a couple of months ago. We didn't even know our cat Burberry had gone missing! Thank goodness for her
collar and the attached tag with her name and our phone number on it. Our
neighbour a few doors down discovered Burberry in his yard, found our number on
her collar and immediately called us.
Turns out she was relaxing in the back yard when the dog we
were babysitting got into the yard with her. The dog would never hurt her but
she didn't know that. In her haste to get away she actually leapt up onto our
six foot fence and got away as fast as she could. All this happened so fast we didn't even know she was gone, we thought she was still safe and sound in the
basement.
On Monday night we were walking our boys and we came across
two very friendly dogs walking along all by themselves. They were happily
wandering around sniffing stuff. These two dogs had tags with their actual
address shown. Turns out they were about 10 houses away from home and we were
able to coax them along till we got there. We rang the bell when arriving and
the dogs went inside immediately after their owner opened the door. She was
grateful but somewhat nonchalant about the situation saying they “get out all
the time” and figured they make their way back home eventually. Wasn’t too
crazy about that attitude let me tell
ya!
So the lesson here (and we learned it early on) is always
equip your pets with a personalized collar and tag. Make sure your phone number or address is on the tag so you can be contacted directly. If you have a city tag, that’s
great but having your direct contact info in addition to that is much better.
Simply relying on the
City of Calgary tag means the person finding your pet must call the city to
pick them. Your pet will endure a ride in the back of their truck, probably in
a cage and will have to wait in a kennel for you to arrive. On top of all that, you’ll probably get a
finger wag from the officer and a nice fine too!
There are many places to get personalized tags created for
your dogs and cats. Just visit your favourite pet store (preferably one that doesn't sell pets) or go online, they’re everywhere! The photo I used was
courtesy of Etsy. There are a ton of fun and unique ones out there.
Not to mention it’s much cheaper than a city by-law fine and less stressful for your lost pet.
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