We received a call on Thursday from the new owners of our dog. They were calling to find out if we had the micro-chip in her. They lost her. She ran away.
She had apparently broken two of their other chains and had now had been missing for a couple hours. They had a choke-collar on her. Why someone would put a choke collar on any dog is a little beyond me (with few exceptions for rottweilers, american terriers, etc...). He said that they were training her. How you can train a dog with a choke collar, on a leash, all by itself in a yeard is beyond me (distance learning/training perhaps) - it seems rediculous and not too thoughtful.
I hadn't attached to any dog as much as I had to this dog. Parts of me are pretty torn up inside. We have their number so we can call them back to find out what happened (if they got her back), but I think I would rather just not know. I would like to leave the possibilities of what happened to her wide open instead of narrowing them down. I want to be able to believe that she disappeared far away enough to find a new owner that cares for her and she for them. The owners said that they could tell that she missed us greatly. This tells me that she wasn't attaching to them. When we had her, we didn't have to chain her up at all in the yard - she always stuck by us. Her behavior with them isn't normal (although, the situation she is in isn't normal either).
Hindsight being 20/20, I would have checked out a few folks to see which one we and the dog liked best. We had a number of people email me saying that they wanted to meet her after these new owners had come to pick her up. I think now that one of those would have been a better choice (or two, three of those).
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