Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Obie, Shih tzu

Obie the Lost Dog
from Go Schnauzer, a Blog Dedicated to Kaiser and His Fellow Schnauzers
June 2nd, 2010

A few weekends ago, as we were walking to our car after a co-ed softball game, a small shih-tzu began following us and quickly tried to jump in our car. He had no tags or collar so we picked him up and walked around the park asking everyone we saw if he belonged to them.

We had no luck finding his owner and decided to take him home. Since we didn’t know his name we began calling him Obie, as in O.B. (Ocean Beach), because that is where we found him. He was such a sweet, friendly dog. As soon as we brought him home he and Kaiser began to play. We immediately noticed that Obie was very dirty, as if he’d been outside for a couple days. We gave him a bath and groomed his coat to remove some of the tangled mats. Kaiser was a bit jealous of all the attention and care Obie was receiving, but he enjoyed having a playmate.

Obie felt so fresh and clean after his bath!

We found Obie on Sunday and decided if we didn’t find his owner by Monday we would take him the San Diego Department of Animal Services, to see if he had a microchip. In the meantime, we took a picture of Obie and posted fliers around the dog park, dog beach, and the softball field where we found him. We also posted an ad on craigslist.org announcing we’d found a lost dog. We received a dozen calls and emails in response to the postings, but none were Obie’s owners.

Obie stayed over night with us on Sunday. He was very well-behaved and trained which made us believe he came from a good home and that a very worried family was looking for him. On Monday morning we took him to the SDDAC. We found out he did have a microchip; however, the contact information on the microchip had not been updated so they were unable to get in touch with Obie’s owner. The SDDAC said they would keep him for four days and wait for his owner to contact them before he would be put up for adoption. We were sad to hand him over to the SDDAC. We told them we wanted to be notified if his owner didn’t claim him and he was not adopted. We were sure that such a sweet, well-behaved dog would be claimed by his owner or quickly adopted by a loving family, but, if not, we absolutely wouldn’t allow him to be put down.

Obie and Kaiser, playing

We frequently checked in with the SDDAC after leaving Obie on Monday and within a couple days they informed us that he had been reunited with his owner. Yay! We were so happy and relieved to hear the news. We sure did enjoy having Obie as a guest in our home, and Kaiser loved having a temporary brother, but we’re so glad he is back home with his family.

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