I know what it's like to lose a dog. It happened to me - and to my family - when I was a teenager and Goldie, our standard Poodle, ran away. We looked for her in animal shelters, ran ads in newspapers, put up fliers in our town and surrounding areas. After several months of searching every day after school and on weekends, we lost hope.
One year later, almost to the day she disappeared, our veterinarian called and said he believed he had found her. Someone brought in a scruffy, filthy apricot-colored Poodle, and the ID on her collar listed him as the vet. He called us.
It was Goldie, all right. We thought we would never see her again, but there she was in our vet's office looking scared and uncertain. I can't describe how happy we were.
Those memories came rushing back when I read the story about Muffy, a Terrier mix on the east coast of Australia who went missing for nine years. Nine years! The other day, she was reunited with her family in Queensland.
RSPCA Australia heard about the dog from someone who had seen her living in a suburban backyard in Melbourne. But she looked sickly, so the person called the organization.
"We found her living in pretty awful conditions on a piece of cardboard," RSPCA inspector Gail Coulter (pictured above with Muffy) told the Times newspaper. "She had matted hair and was riddled with fleas and had a really severe dermatitis condition."
A welfare agency discovered that Muffy had a microchip and traced her to the Lampard family, which had purchased another dog, named Jack, after giving up hope of finding Muffy. But Jack died four months ago.
"I just couldn't believe it. It's absolutely amazing," Natalie Lampard told the Times. "I told my daughter Chloe and she was just over the moon. She can't wait to see Muffy again."
The dog will need continued care for her skin condition, but after a 1,250-mile odyssey and almost a decade on her own, she's clearly none the worse for wear.
Oh, the stories she could tell.
Twenty years ago when I entered the profession of dog training and began teaching classes, I was hard pressed to find much variety in the methodology and literature. There was a plethora of information about choke collars, leash jerks, scruff shakes, ear pinches, alpha rolls, and of course, alpha roles. There were few, if any, references to the principles of behavior modification, and training with food rewards was often discouraged.
Photo by the NY Daily News
It took a little while but the ASPCA has finally arrested the guy named Fabian Henderson for throwing his dog Oreo off a roof six stories high.
Joseph Pentangelo from the ASPCA said: Because of the amount of trauma she went through, there were a number of breaks and noting that nothing broke the poor pup's fall. Oreo is continuing to recover under the ASPCA's care.
Read the article by John Lauinger here.
Thanks for inviting reader stories on your blog, Jen. I’ve been enjoying living vicariously through the lens of your camera and it’s a pleasure to gab about my dog here.Our pup, Hamlet, is a Frenchie, just like your Riptide and Tempest! As a first-time dog “mom,” I spent a lot of time at dog parks when Hamlet was a puppy and my husband and I even purchased our first home in part because it was walking distance to an off-leash dog park.
It was such a highlight to take Hamlet to dog beach – both in Ocean Beach, where your blog is based, and in Coronado. In general we were warned that Frenchies don’t swim, but that didn’t stop Hamlet from playing in the surf. With a dog smile from ear-to-ear, Hamlet would take to the sand, running full-speed like a crazy-bunny, and he found great pleasure at barking at the waves.
Unfortunately the wave-barking turned into barking at other dogs and kids so we no longer take Hamlet to the beach or any unleashed dog park. Even though he gets along great with the two human kids we’ve added to our “pack” since Hamlet came into our family, we just don’t want to take the risk that he will nip at some kid or dog when he’s excited at the beach. We have worked hard to break the bad habits but this stubborn bully seems intent on proving he’s a Doberman in a 25-pound body.So for now, we sit on the sidelines and watch the dogs in your blog have a great time on the San Diego beaches. I have some great memories of Hamlet making dog friends; one friend in particular was a brindle Frenchie girl named Bijou (and after talking to her dog moms, we discovered that the two dogs were actually related through bloodlines).
Hope you enjoy a few pictures of little Hamlet romping around on the dog beaches of Ocean Beach and Coronado, here in San Diego.
Liz Philips is a sleep-deprived, iced-tea addicted San Diego dog mom (and now mom of 2 human kids). She keeps a fun blog called www.BabyBlooze.com; photos of sad/mad/bad and completely adorable kids.
