rev:text
| - There was the frantic call from my son in the middle of the night...."Mom, Starr is gone!" Feeling helpless, I did what I could from LA while my son and his friends tirelessly combed the neighborhoods, made flyers and enlisted the help of every social networking site out there including Reddit to find our beloved wandering doggy senior citizen. She is almost 17 years old and we were well aware that she has had dwindling vision and hearing, putting her more at risk of an unfortunate ending to this story.
Happily, we discovered our little scamp had managed to roam 8 miles from home in a relatively short period of time, was picked up by the Las Vegas Animal Control and taken to Lied Shelter.
My son zipped down to pick her up and was greeted by a very grateful staff. They were very kind and helpful to him and said that they had a very busy morning with many more animals than usual needing a temporary home at the shelter. They also said that they were very glad Zachary B. came down to pick her up because, they confided, many elderly dogs are just let go by their owners so that the owners don't have to put them down themselves, horrifying as this may sound.
Zachary B. paid a mere $45 to spring her from the slammer after her microchip identified him as the owner (I had called at 1 am to update all of that information with a very responsive, helpful and kind Home Again staffer). She looked unphased by all of it and the staff at Lied proclaimed her to be a very sweet dog. We all knew that, but it was nice of them to notice! Having her microchipped allowed Zach to pick her up that day instead of waiting. Also, I bought a package from Home Again for $17. They notified by mass email all vets, pet stores and others within a 25 mile radius of where she was last seen. Zach and friends called several vets offices before she was located and they all said that they knew about this dog. I Very Highly recommend Home Again!!
A really nice touch: I had left a voicemail at 12:30 am at the shelter. They returned my call at 1 pm. Very impressive! The shelter has a website that posts photos of animals who are there with a very user friendly filter so that you can search for your pet. The only thing is that the shelter is so inundated with animals - 50 TO 60 PER DAY GENERALLY. EVEN WEEKENDS - that they cannot complete the intake of the animal for about 24 hours post arrival. The best thing to do on the first day that your pet is missing is to go to the shelter to see if your baby is waiting there for you. All's well that ends well. Boy and his dog are blissfully reunited.
|