Tips For Keeping Your Dog Secure

Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2005 12:00 pm Post subject: Tips For Keeping Your Dog Secure

We all try to be responsible dog owners, but accidents can happen to even the most responsible owner.

A child or visitor may leave the gate or door open, a lead or collar snaps or if something happens to you, maybe you fall over or are in an accident, and your dog escapes - or even fire, flood & storm can all lead to your dog escaping.

Here are some preventative measures you can take to avoid this happening:

- Obedience train your dog and reinforce training. Teaching a dog to sit when the front door or a gate is opened as opposed to bolting out and making sure your dog will come reliably when called can help stop your dog should he begin to bolt from you. Training is NO substitute for common sense and should not be used in place of identification and proper confinement.

- Securely latching gates and monitoring fence lines for digging or signs of climbing are a must.

- Put up a fence that is high enough to keep your dog in.

- Do not allow your dog outside when you are not home or able to supervise it. A dog can escape minutes after you leave or fall asleep and not be discovered missing for eight hours or more. Also, these dogs are at greater risk for theft and harassment.

- Keep ID on your dog. Your dog should have at least an ID tag kept on a buckle collar (using any other collar as a general wear collar is dangerous). Many people are also Microchipping their dogs also. Just a tag is NOT enough. Collars can be slipped or removed. A secondary ID that is registered is a must. If you travel, use a temporary tag with the information where you will be staying on it should be added to the collar.

- Keep current pictures of your dog. It is amazing how much he will change in even a year or two.

Now, what if the unthinkable happens? You must act immediately. The faster you get the word out and start looking, the better. Some things you should do are:

What to Do if You Lose Your Dog

- Call every shelter and humane society within a ten-mile radius to start.

- Get out and start canvassing the neighbourhood.

- If possible, have some people start looking for your dog, while the other start making calls, get many people involved.

- Post fliers throughout the area your dog last was as well as in stores, the local vets, shelters and anywhere you can. Use waterproof ink and colour pictures if possible.

Include a description as well as a reward. However, beware of scams where people will say they found your dog and insist on the money before returning it. There are sick people who use these crises to profit!

- Keep a list of all the places called and call them daily at first. Expand to several miles or more around where the dog was last seen. Dogs can travel quite a distance – even more if they are actually stolen.

- Contact vets and see if anyone has recently brought in a new dog that resembles yours.

- Do not give up. Sometimes dogs can be recovered months after loss.

If anyone has any more tips - please add them to this thread.

Many Thanks