Could This Be Your Dog?

For the past month, this dog has been wandering around our neighborhood. He’d often come to our yard and play with my children, or follow us as we walked around the neighborhood. Because of the “colors” in his fur, my children named him Skittles. Sometimes we’d go days without seeing him, then he’d be back for a couple days, sleeping by the fence next door or near a fire hydrant a block away.

After a couple weeks we figured he had a home and just kept getting out. He didn’t look malnourished or dirty; he was always happy and friendly. But we didn’t know where he lived, and he didn’t have a collar. None of the other neighbors that I spoke with knew where he lived although they’d seen him wandering around. It was thought that he lived at the end of our street, but no one seemed to know which house.

My children wanted to take him in until we could find his owner, but that just wasn’t possible–he obviously went home at times, and I didn’t want to stop him. They enjoyed having Skittles “visit” them a few times a week. We even set out water for him because it was so hot this past week.

Tuesday, 3/30/10, Skittles ventured out of our neighborhood and was hit by a car. My 9-year-old was devastated when he heard the news. He loved that dog.

Does your dog have a collar and a tag? Just a simple phone number is all that’s needed. If Skittles had been tagged, I would have called to find out where he lived. I would have let my children put him in our fenced pool area until I knew his owners were home, and then we would have walked him home. I would have done that over and over, however many times he got out.

We still don’t know who Skittles belonged to, or if they even know he’s never coming home again. Please, please put a collar on your dog, and put your phone number on the tag so that your dog doesn’t end up like Skittles.

This entry was posted on April 1, 2010 at 9:24 pm and is filed under Daily Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.