Saturday, March 24, 2012

Maggie, black lab

Rural Texas family, lost dog reunited in Loveland
Details of Maggie's trek north unclear; microchip ID'd her
Written by Robert Allen
March 24, 2012

A family in rural Texas will be complete once more after its lost dog was found along Interstate 25 near Loveland, 11 days and nearly 800 miles from home.


Ashley Orr of Bennett, Texas, said that Maggie, the energetic 2-year-old black Labrador retriever, disappeared under suspicious circumstances. The family was on an emotional “rollercoaster” before they got a call from Larimer Humane Society.

“(Maggie) sleeps with my son every single night. Her bed is still in his room,” Orr said. “It’s very challenging trying to explain to a 3-year-old that your dog is gone.”

It’s unclear how Maggie arrived on the side of the highway, but the microchip her owners had embedded in the dog resulted in her return home Wednesday, according to the humane society.

Maggie is in excellent health and was eager to meet new people Friday afternoon when the Coloradoan visited the shelter. Orr said her son, Conner, is “very excited” for her return.
“I think his patience level is about done,” she said. “He’s asked me every day at least five times, ‘When is Maggie coming home?’ ”

Bennett is about an hour north of Amarillo.

Orr said Maggie had been left inside a fenced backyard at the family’s two-acre property the day she disappeared. Her son may have accidentally left the gate open, she said.

Maggie was wearing a license and vaccination tags in addition to the embedded microchip, she said. Employees at a nearby oil pump supply company said someone had apparently stopped by with Maggie looking for the owners. But the family never heard from anyone before last weekend, when the humane society called.

HomeAgain, the microchip company, is helping pay the expenses of sending Maggie home. Orr said she’d first tried a separate company online but was scammed out of $55.

Microchipping is a permanent form of identification, embedded in the dog, that cannot fall off or become impossible to read. This, in addition to a dog license, which is required in Fort Collins, Loveland and Larimer County, helps ensure an owner can reunite with a lost pet, according to the news release.

Source: http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20120324/NEWS01/120324003/Rural-Texas-family-lost-dog-reunited-Loveland

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