Why do “stray” dogs always seem to appear when you have the least amount of time to deal with them?
In your experience, what proportion of lost dogs run away from people, and what proportion will come to a stranger readily? (In my experience, the runners are about 90%, the stranger-friendly ones are less than 10%.)
Why do so many lost dogs have collars and no tags? (You can just use a Sharpie to print a phone number on a collar, people!!)
Why are so few dogs microchipped when this wonderful technology allows for happy reunions years and thousands of miles away from the original dog/owner separation?
Why are so many stray dogs reproductively intact? (I actually know the answer to this one.)
Is it just my community, or are there really more stray pit bull-mixes than any other type of dog?
I have a friend who posits that a stray, intact pit-mix is likely to live longer wandering the streets than he will if turned into the average local shelter. This makes me incredibly sad, but I think it might be true in many communities. Is this true in your community?
If he promised not to fight your dogs or eat your chickens, would you host this sweet fellow while your post-COVID-19 local shelter was not taking in strays? (This is not rhetorical.)
I joined the “Lost & Found Pets” Facebook group for my town/city of 110,000 about 6 months ago and it has opened my eyes to this world. I too have wondered why so many pit type dogs seem to be lost and/or found and what can be done by animal control about so many repeat offenders (i.e. vouchers for help with fence repair? Higher fees the more times they are picked up?). Regarding chips, I have always had a menagerie of rescues in my home, all with chips from different companies. When I move, it’s a challenge to contact each different company to update the info. I read a blog that gave me a terrific idea to register all my dogs and cats with AKC Reunite for a one-time, lifetime fee of $17.50, so I only have to call 1 company to update their info. They send a free collar tag w/ chip number or you can pay a small amount for one with the pet’s name on it. If I remember, I still try to update the other companies, as well, but always AKC Reunite. I also think rescues/kennels should have new adopters register their chips BEFORE they leave with their new pet or do the registering for them.
Where I live, if you adopt from a humane society or registered shelter organization, the chip is implanted in the animal before they go onto the adoption floor and the shelter is permanently listed as backup in case the owner does not update their contact info. The goal is for the animal to never end up at another shelter with an information dead-end as to where the animal belongs.
I volunteer with Missing Animal Response Network–we help people find their lost pets. Unfortunately, we hear so many stories like these, but mostly from the other end of the leash–owners who have lost a dog who doesn’t have any kind of identification. Why that is, I have no idea!!! Why do lost dogs tend to run away from potential rescuers? Often lost pets go into survival mode and they see humans as potential threats. Sometimes this even applies to their owners; hence our use of calming signals and/or our well-trained, experienced humane trappers. There’s a YouTube video of our founder, Kat Albrecht, demonstrating the use of calming signals. If anyone wants more info about recovering lost pets, check out MissingAnimalResponseNetwork.com and email me at terrierpowertracking@yahoo.com.
The last dog I found was an intact male pit, left tied to a park bench and in bad shape. Poor thing had probably been alone all night with rats running around it, wearing a harness that was falling off his body. I couldn’t take it home with me due to my own dog, and being in a tiny apartment, I had no way to keep them separate. It went to animal control and I posted pictures and video of him to help him find a home. The shelter said he was chipped and the info had been updated only two months prior to being found, which they said was incredibly unusual. The owner had updated their cell phone, email, address, but didn’t respond to all their efforts to contact him. For some reason, he was never posted for public adoption after the stray hold and put directly on the euthanasia list, which set off a scramble to find someone to get him since I was out of town. The woman who owns my dog walking service called the shelter, got him pulled from the list and adopted him. He is now living his best life in a big house, big yard, loves kids, even learned to love cats and has turned out to be a fantastic dog. So many intact pits “get lost” in the city, don’t get the advocates that the one I found did, and are never stand a chance.
I can answer the question you posed about collars. I have one dog suffer a near amputation of his toes while he was hanging from the collar of the dog he had been playing with. Meanwhile, her tongue was blue and she was collapsing by the time we got her collar cut off. From that day forward my dogs have never worn collars. I’m part of a huge community of dog owners and there are many who would tell you of dogs they’ve lost due to collar accidents…strangulations, broken jaws, broken necks. Collars are too dangerous to leave on a dog unless you’re holding an attached leash. I had 25 years of dogs who wore collars. It only has to happen to you once and you’ll never leave a collar on again. And breakaway collars sound good, but they often either don’t breakaway, or they fall off too easily and you have to go searching.
My dogs are all microchipped and chips are registered and kept up to date. It’s the safest way to identify your dog without putting it at risk of injury or death.
I’m totally with you on recommending “no collars, but microchip with updated info…” because my dog is absolutely one of those guys who likes to grab other dogs’ collars and drag them around in play — an accident just waiting to happen. I wrote about witnessing one of these accidents with a neighbors’ dogs and it was horrific. https://www.whole-dog-journal.com/care/when-dog-collars-become-deadly/
OR, use a breakaway collar with ID (*and* a microchip with updated info). But what I always seem to find is the WORST possible combination: collar and no ID.
My dogs don’t wear collars. They are all chipped and spayed/neutered. They play and wrestle a LOT. Getting a jaw caught in the collar of another dog is dangerous and could be life threatening to both of them. It’s a catch 22 – bad to not have a collar-bad to have a collar. But having seen first hand what can happen when one gets caught in a collar-it’s not worth the risk. And yes, it was a collar that was supposed to snap open-forget what they’re called.
Wow…he looks exactly like a “stray” dog that was wondering our neighborhood and my backyard last year. Only this one was not friendly. While out on a walk with my dog, he came charging towards us from between 2 houses on my block. My 120 lb dog was barking loudly at him which briefly stopped him in his tracks. But I had to fend him off for a couple hundred feet before he ran off again. A few days later, my dog was outside in his dog run when this same stray came up behind and startled my dog, then a barking growling war began. Thankfully there was a wire fence between them. I shooed him off of my property but then about an hour later I witnessed him chasing children down the street who were walking to the bus stop to go to school. I suspected that the dog belonged to someone a couple of streets north of us in our subdivision. I called the police and reported it. I told the officer where I thought the dog lived and that I didn’t want the dog to pay the price for his owners lapse of control. He talked with the owners and it was suspected that their kids would let the dog out to wander around the neighborhood while the parents were not home. The officer also informed me that the owners were given a warning that because of his offensive behavior, if he got out again, he would be taken away from them. I haven’t seen him wandering around since so hopefully the parents took control of the situation. Before this incident, I’ve retrieved several strays of all shapes and sizes. All of them were friendly, some scared and freezing cold, (one we found during a snowstorm).
Most of the lost dogs in my area (VT) appear to be newly adopted and escape from their new family. Slipped collars and harnesses, dropped leashes or no leash, open doors or gates seem to be the most common. Many do not even know their name, scared and just want to run. If they are chipped, 99% have NOT BEEN UPDATED. Personally, I think some new families are not prepared for a new dog. We know a newly adopted dog need time to decompress and accumulate to their new surroundings. And new families need to adjust to having another being to care for. Rescues here do a good job at screening the families and do offer classes after adoption. I’d like to see classes BEFORE adoption. Educate the family on the dog’s needs and what they need to do before he/she comes into their home. And before the final walk out the door, make certain the chip information has been updated.
Nancy; I agree completely! A required class/or training sessions before the adoption is finalized should be implemented. Then, if the owner has second thoughts about the commitment, the dog stays at the shelter. Far less stress on everyone, especially the dog.
I really agree with this. I have rescued 4 dogs, my last is a Pitt mixed with boxer. When he smiles and personality wise you can see the Pit Bull heritage. His boxer side is hyper protective and a squished nose. Every dog except this last one, I scheduled an obedience class ASAP, usually in the first week. This was invaluable, even with a nine year old golden and 8 year old golden collie mix. Using positive reinforcement and constantly “winning” really bonded us. The puppy I adopted from a rescue was in puppy kindergarten the Monday after he said goodbye to his foster mom on the previous Saturday. He was in every kind of class I could find. Bonding! My current cutie had heart worm when we met, and was a year and a half. We had to keep him calm, and he was (thank God!) moved from shelter to shelter instead of being killed for his entire young life, before he rescued us. He is completely heart worm free now, but it was pretty hard to watch that process. To say he is dog reactive is an understatement. He is so smart and we are bonded, NOW, but he is an accomplished escape artist. I finally got martingale collars because his big head and neck made it easy to slip out of buckle collars, quick release collars, and in desperation I turned to one that he can’t get out of in seconds. I wonder if some of the strays who have nice blocky heads and thick necks are also escape artists.
He is ready to go to school and I can’t wait.. Now if COVID 19 would let go of Michigan we might be able to go to the reactive dog class we had been counseled to wait on, when he is assessed, oh about every 6 months.
I have always got a slip leash in my pocket when walking, and in my glove box. Happily, not too many strays in my inner city neighborhood, but reactive or not, our animal control gives dogs 7 days before death. Not ok. Our rescues get calls on day 5 and we manage not to have most die, but it sickens me. It is all pittie mixes and chihuahuas at our Animal control. Every mixed breed group has far more pittbulls.mixes than any other breed.
I agree about classes before a dog leaves either a rescue or shelter. Our local shelter also has mostly pit and pit mixes. We encountered one on a walk and the girl walking him had no idea that his stance was threatening and got mad when we asked her to get control of the dog so we could continue on past.
It seems I’m always in the car with my own dogs when I spot a stray and I’m afraid of just throwing another dog in the car without proper introductions. What do others do when this happens to them? If I’m close to home, I take my dogs home but of course, by the time I get back to where I saw the stray, they have moved on.
I just took a stray in to get him scanned for a chip and was excited when they said “yes, he is chipped”. They gave me the information and I called it in. He was chipped but the chip had never been registered!! The rescue I volunteer with often hears this or that the owner has moved and never updated the information. Please, everyone, register your dog’s chip and keep it updated for your sake and your dog’s.
Thanks for that reminder. It’s so exciting to see a microchip number come up on the scanner, and so disappointing and frustrating to learn that it’s never been registered.
After working at my local humane society and a veterinarian’s office, I can tell you that there is still a way to find the owner! Microchip companies do have the ability to tell you what shelter or vet clinic purchased the microchip. In turn, the shelter or the vet clinic who implanted microchip likely kept a record of who owned the pet when the microchip was implanted. It may not always lead you to the current owner, but it is a start. And as a former shelter employee, I can tell you, the information that you may find along the way can provide a lot of insight into the pet and owners alike!
When microchipping is promoted, they rarely speak of the registration. They need to promote doing that on the spot before leaving the room where the chip was inserted.
This happened to us two years ago Tuesday. Intact male pit mix (3/4, according to Wisdom Panel), no collar, no nothing. He is, at present, stretched out on a foam dog bed two feet from my office chair. I wish I could post a photo, because his undercarriage is almost exactly like the one who wandered into your life.