Hunter's Heart Brittanys - Losing Your Dog (Prevention and What To Do About It)

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Losing Your Dog:
(Preventing It, & What to Do if It Happens)

Home: Dog Care: Losing Your Dog
Page Updated December 28, 2002

Topics included in this section:
* How to Find Your Lost Dog (for Calgary)
* Why Microchip Identification is Important

Even the most well behaved dog can get lost. If you identify your dog properly, he is more likely to be returned to you. As well as information about microchip recovery databases, this section also provides some tips about the steps you can take to find a lost dog.

HOW TO FIND YOUR LOST DOG (for Calgary)

Feel free to print this list and keep it on your fridge. (To print, just click the icon in the navigation bar to the left.)

Don't' wait. Your dog's life depends on you acting immediately. Be ready to provide the dog's description, tattoo or microchip number and license number.

Look around your neighborhood immediately. (Don't' forget to talk to your mailman, your neighbors & kids who play around the neighborhood.)
Call the Humane Society Lost & Found at 250-5678.
Call Calgary Animal Services at 268-1160.
Call all vets & animal hospitals closest to where you live. Your dog may have been found injured by somebody & taken him to a vet. Also phone the major animal hospitals: Calgary North Veterinary Hospital, phone 277-0135, is open 24 hours. And phone the Calgary Animal Emergency Clinic at 269-7822, after hours only.

If he doesn't show up in the first 24 hours, consider taking these steps:

If your dog looses his tags & doesn't have a microchip implant or visible tattoo, you'll have to rely on identifying him in person.

Calgary Animal Services holds some dogs for 3 days, so be sure to visit at least every 3 days. The Animal Services Centre is at 3990 Manchester Road SE. You can also call their interactive message machine at 243-4844 for a list of dogs impounded there. This list is updated twice a day.

Visit the Humane Society every 3 days at 1323 - 36 Ave. NE. Some dogs are only held for 4 days.

Consider putting up a notice, with a copy of the dog's photo, at these shelters.
Check lost and found ads in the Classifieds sections of the newspapers. (For the Calgary Herald online, click www.calgaryherald.com, go to the Classifieds, then to its Announcements/Personal section.) Consider putting in an ad with a photo in the newspaper.
Put notices up around your neighborhood at stores and vet clinics. Don't forget local schools, since a child may have found your dog wandering.
Ask local radio & cable TV stations to mention your lost dog.
Call City Street Maintenance at 268-4913. If your dog was accidentally run over & killed, they'll pick up his body.

Don't' give up. Some dogs are returned even a year after they went missing.

Once your pet is found, don't forget to call back the Humane Society & the vet clinics. Then they can remove your name from their list of lost dogs.

WHY MICROCHIP IDENTIFICATION IS IMPORTANT

A microchip is inserted through the skin between the shoulder blades. No anesthetic is required. The chip is about the size & shape of a grain of rice, and the procedure is similar to getting a needle.

At Hunters Heart Brittanys, we identify all of our puppies before they leave our home to go to their new families. We have used PetNet and AVID brand microchips and tattoos in the past. When we submit the CKC paperwork for the registrations of our puppies, we also register the puppies' microchip or tattoo numbers. This information is eventually stored on the CKC's 24-hour recovery database, with the contact information for the puppies' registered owners.

Other than the microchip number, contact information & call name, no additional information is stored in the CKC database. And until the CKC processes the paperwork for the entire litter, that means that the puppies' microchip numbers aren't registered with them. This makes it very important for new puppy owners to register with at least one microchip recovery database and get a municipal dog license as soon as possible. That way, if you lose your puppy, there are records of his microchip number & any organization can contact you as soon as they find your puppy.

Why Bother to Microchip?

1 out of 3 pets is lost or stolen yearly in Canada!
70% of these pets never come home!
Most lost pets are euthanized, adopted by strangers or used in research!
In the past, our dogs were identified by tattoos, and I.D. tags on their collars. In the near future, when Calgary Animal Services picks up a dog "at large" they will enter the dog license number on the dog's tag into their mobile computer to find out where the dog lives. Then they do not need to bring the dog to their shelter, but will drive your pet directly home instead!

But, dogs sometimes slip out of buckle collars and lose their tags. That leaves them unidentified.

Tattoos can't be lost like tags on the collar. But if your dog's tattoo is on his flank, it is definitely not easy to see, and may be missed. A tattoo in your dog's ear is obvious, but you may see it as quite unattractive, or the ink may fade over time making the numbers difficult to read.

Microchip implants are superior to tattoos in these respects. (Of course, even microchips aren't perfect. One of our dogs has two microchips, and both of them have migrated. Still, having a microchip increases your dogs chances of being returned to you if lost. So we continue to rely on microchips.)
Nowadays, animal shelters, municipal animal services & veterinarians routinely scan for microchips in lost animals. The systems are coordinated across Canada & the U.S.A..
There are lots of other recovery databases that will register not only microchip or tattoo information with the owner's contact information, but also things like most recent vaccinations and health status of the pet. Click here for more information about various brands of microchips and recovery databases.