Rescue Tails / The First Rescue of 2023

The emergency phone rang at 5:30am, startling me awake. An early morning jogger had found a stray dog sitting just outside the shelter, and called to inform me that she had secured the dog in our overnight pen. At 8:00am when I was almost inside the shelter, the phone rang again. On the other line was one of my volunteers, also out for a morning walk, who spotted a small terrier running fast and loose down the streets of Marathon and near a highway. She was keeping pace, and tracking her on foot, but in need of assistance in catching the little dog.

I turned away from the building, back towards my car, jumped in and set off to catch up with my volunteer and the dog she was following. I turned down the street when she called back “no she’s on 104th street now!” Back onto US1, making a U-Turn, and down the next street. She called again, “she turned around again and cut through some bushes, now she’s on 106th street.” There’s so much morning traffic at 8am! I pulled back out onto US1, again, made another U-Turn and turned down 105th Street. I finally saw my volunteer, and the little dog she was chasing.

We slowed down, her moving calmly on foot down one street, as I drove slowly down the opposite way until I got close enough to park the car and casually walk towards her. The little dog looked at me, looked at her, looked back at me. She thought about bolting, she was checking her options, looking for her next move.

We both sat down, and stopped the chase. We weren’t close enough to touch her yet, but she was tired and ready to either give up, or bolt again. Thankfully, she sat too! My volunteer slowly scooched closer and closer until she could reach out and touch her. I inched forward with the leash, and slipped it on. We got her!

The thirty-minute chase had come to a successful end. At the shelter we scanned her for a microchip, but she didn’t have one. She had no identification at all. She was dirty and had fleas, so the first order of business was a bath. We vaccinated her, fed her some breakfast and settled her in to wait during her 5-day stray hold, to see if an owner comes forward. If nobody claims her, she will soon be spayed and made available for adoption at our Marathon Campus.

Sometimes dogs get out on accident. A gate is left open, a door didn’t shut all the way, or the dog slipped past an unsuspecting visitor. The single most important thing to always have on your pet dog is identification. Without identification, we have no way of contacting you to let you know your pet is at the shelter.

This New Year, please make a resolution to ensure your dog is always wearing a collar with a clearly legible tag that has your current name, phone number and emergency contact. Better yet, a microchip is a permanent way to ensure your information never gets lost. As small as a grain of rice, the chip is simply implanted under the skin, typically between the shoulder blades. If your pet does accidently go missing, any shelter or Vet clinic can scan for the chip, contact the company and receive information such as your name, phone number, address and emergency contact (just be sure to always update your microchip by contacting the company should you ever move, or change phone numbers.) If your pet does not have a microchip, we now have low cost clinics at our Marathon Campus every Wednesday and in Key West every Friday. We will gladly implant your pet with a chip, at low cost to you. For more information on our clinic visit https://fkspca.org/what-we-do/clinic-services/.

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