Colby, a white lab

As you can see from the story, the man that found the dog seems to have been more than willing to reunite him with his owner, but it doesn't appear that it occurred to him to actually look for the owner. His purpose in taking the dog to the vet where he was scanned for a microchip was not at all to find the family that surely must be missing him.

Missing dog returned to Fresno family
Published online on Friday, Oct. 23, 2009
By Ron Orozco / The Fresno Bee

Colby is home.

The missing white Lab was featured in an Oct. 3 story in The Bee on tools people can use to search for lost pets. Colby's owners, Mark and Lori Ruh, talked about Web sites and other things they were doing to search for their son Jimmy's dog, who went missing from the family's east Fresno home Sept. 15.

After weeks of looking, the Ruhs had no luck finding Colby.

But then a Sanger man called the Ruhs on Oct. 16, saying a white Lab had wandered into his neighbor's yard and then was given to him for his son to train to hunt.

At first, Lori Ruh thought, "This is just another white-dog sighting." The Ruhs had received quite a few tips that didn't pan out.

But the caller explained that when he took the dog to get fixed at Kings Canyon Veterinary Hospital, workers scanned the dog for a microchip -- and the Ruhs came up as the owners.

The Ruhs immediately went to pick up Colby.

An emotional reunion followed. Lori Ruh surprised Jimmy after school. Colby was waiting in Jimmy's room, scratching and thumping his hind leg in excitement.

Everything's been going well since Colby's return home. Lori Ruh says she's back to vacuuming white hairs again, but she doesn't mind.

What has the family learned? "The chips do work," she says. "And not to give up."

Source: http://www.fresnobee.com/lifestyle/story/1684725.html
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