Scary Morning. My dog ran away

S

Shann

Joined
Sep 2, 2004
Messages
5,250
I let my Germand Shepard and Rhodesian Ridgeback out at 6:50 AM. When I called them at at 7:00, my Shepard strolled in. The Ridgeback had run through the electic underground fence and was gone. I spent the next 2 hours calling for her, driving up and down main roads and back roads.

This girl is a pampered princess and I don't think she could survive on her own or be smart enough to come back. I was panicked. My son was in tears. My mother came over and helped me. I eventually went to work. Mom went to the town offices to tell the clerk and a guy from public works just happened to be there. He had seen her down at the town sewer station! Mom found her and got her home! She was about 1.5 miles from the house, less across country.

Lots of people seem to let their dogs roam and they come back, I don't think she would. I was very relieved to say the least.

Mom called back to say that Zoe was curled up on the couch with a blanket over her.
 
Whew!! I am soooooo happy that you got your Zoe back!! That is very scarey!! I relieved that she is home!
 
I've had that happen once also. It sucked. After almost an hour of looking we found her.

Glad she's back :)
 
The fastest way to make me cry is to let my dogs loose. The tears and panic would set in immediately. I'm a total freak when it comes to these things. I am absolutely terrified of one of them getting out and getting hit by a car. I've done everything I can to prevent it, but there is always those extreme possibilities. Anyhow, I'm very happy that you found your dog. I wouldn't have gone to work until I found my dog. I would be useless there anyway.
 
I lived the nightmare! I had the landscapers over last year and I informed them that when they clean the dog run they are not to open the other gate leading to the street under any circumstance. Well, he didn't pass this on to his crew and they opened it and never closed it. My wife let the dog out (we can't see the other gate from where we let him in) and about 1/2 hour later my neighbor is knocking on our door asking if we know where our dog is because a chocolate lab just got hit by a van. I ran out and sure enough it was my Rem. He was alive but not doing well. We got him to the vet and he is alive and well although blind in his right eye. I informed the landscaper and he was distraught over it and picked up the $1600 vet bill without me even asking. He is still our landscaper because of that.
 
We used to have our fence going all the way around the yard including our driveway at the front of the house. One morning I let my dogs out and as I was walking towards the front of the house, I noticed that the gate in front of my driveway was wide open. I totally freaked out. I remember a paramedic friend of mine once told me to run to where the most danger is first. Natural instinct, at least for me, is to look in the easy/safe places first because it's not as upsetting. So I ran to the gate opening instead of to the back door where I let them out. There standing inside my gate was the meter reader. I grabbed my dogs who were just coming around the side, put them inside, and went out to talk to this guy. I pointed out our private property and dog warning signs on the front of our fence. He said, "I'm sorry, this is how I always check your meter. If you'd like I can read it from the fenceline with my binoculars." :confused: :mad: I calmly explained to him that I have three dogs that could have gotten out and into the road. (The road in front of our house is EXTREMELY busy). He replied, "You don't have to worry about that, if something were to happen to one of your dogs we would pay for it." :mad: The SOB didn't get it. I was so pissed. I told him that he damn well would pay for it because I would throw him under the car too. I told him that these dogs are part of my family and that he cannot simply buy me a replacement if something terrible happened. I really think I should've called his employer and explained it to him/her too. :mad:

It's those "unknowns" like what happened to K.V. and what could have happened with this idiot that terrify me. :(
 
Shann, I'm glad you got your dog back unscathed. Now here's my veterinary public service announcement for you and everyone else here. GO GET YOUR PETS MICROCHIPPED. This allows for a permanent and unseen form of identification for your pet so hopefully they can be returned to you if they get lost. Think about travelling with your pets on vacation... what if they got off the leash at the rest stop?

Oh yeah, me and Bob Barker also recommend to get your pets spayed and neutered too. ;)
 
My dog's gotten better about this, but she used to try to run out the front door at every chance (thankfully we live in the suburbs.) She knew where to come back to, the only reason she did it was because she loved having us chase her... Running circles around the neighborhood after a dog sucks. The most annoying part is that she will actually stand there and wait for you if you're taking too long, and start running again after you catch up.
And when she's done, she'll head back home...

And I've found out over the years that she only runs as fast as I can keep up... Because the faster I run, the faster she runs...
 
My dog is chipped and neutered. (and so were the other two, when they were alive.)

I know the feeling. I have dove inches in front of cars, because I am bigger than my little JR (God rest his soul.) escapped!!
There is a house on our street that gets rented, and on the people that was renting, let my 3 dogs out!! We have since put a screw and bolt on the lock of THAT gate!! I was pissed, it took us forever to get our babies back!! THANK God none of them got hit by a car!!
Our dogs and cats are our children!! (2 of our dogs have since passed on.)

I am sooooooo grateful that your doggy is OK!! That is horrible when something like that happens!!

I would be sooooooo pissed at the meter reading if they acted like that towards me and my dog!! You just can't replace someone's pet!! What is wrong with some people?!
 
We had just moved to a flat in South St. Louis along with our then 7-8 month-old shepherd. Already it was my wife's dog, you understand. I let him out in the back yard when I got up, about half asleep, and started making coffee. He didn't come back to the door like usual, so I looked outside and saw the back gate open.
I rushed out and there he was, standing in the alley, about 50 yards away. In a nice, calm voice, I called him, and he took off like a shot.
Damn!
I chased around on foot for several minutes, but wasn't doing any good. We had just moved in, so I was sure he'd get lost. I decided to go back and get the car, fearing to break the news to my wife. (She was still in bed...)

I stepped through the back door and saw Max lying in bed next to my wife, looking veeery innocent... Coulda killed him. Great dog.
 
I've had that happen twice that I can recall:

Once my dad and I were going to his machine shop late at night the day before Thanksgiving, and our black lab took off when we got there and let him out of the van. We eventually found him, but he was close to some pretty busy roads.

The other time our German Shepherd's tie-line clip froze and malfunctioned somehow, and he got away. More searching, but this time in the woods in the snow at night. That one was pretty bad, but finally he turned up trotting along the sidewalk.

Glad your dog is OK!
 
glad everything turned out ok.

I must say, that the electronic fence thing is a bluff: if a dog gets excioted enough about something or wants to go through it badly enough, he can. The aversive stimulus isn't going to hold him back (if it did it would have to be really abusive). If they go through it, they will soon be out of range of the signal.It does work most of the time, but can occasionally fail. And when it is your dog, the statistics don't mean much.
 
Shann,
I'm glad your dog was found. A neighbor behind us just told my wife about how her dog got out and got run over and killed, and that was still on my mind when I opened this thread. Had a friend out in the country that let his black lab out to do his business and he was gone within 5 minutes. We think maybe somebody stole him because he was never found and we looked everywhere and put up signs.
 
when I was growing up we had a mongrel who was an escape artist and lothario. He would always try to sneak out if you opened the front door. Try as we liked he did still sometimes get out but always came back quite happy with himself. This went on till the day he passed away at 18. I don't agree with people letting their dogs roam and we tried to stop him but he was Houdini reincarnated!!

We did have one dog get lost a Border Collie when my mother took him for a walk in the local woods. He just dissapeared and he had less sense than a brick and so got himself lost totally. Despite much searching we couldn't find him so put up flyers round the woods. 3 days later I got a call saying they had seen him so I rode there on my bike (this was before I could drive about 14 years ago) and started looking again for him. No sucess till I saw him at the other end of the carpark next to the woods. I then had the fun of trying to get a very excited border collie several miles home with a pushbike which he kept running infront of when I rode ( did I mention he was daft? :rolleyes: )

Glad you got your dog back safe and sound pets, going missing is a horrible feeling.
 
Paul Davidson said:
Shann,
Had a friend out in the country that let his black lab out to do his business and he was gone within 5 minutes. We think maybe somebody stole him because he was never found and we looked everywhere and put up signs.
Click to expand...


That happened around here about a year or so ago. Some guy pulled up in front of a farm type place out of town and stole a Beagle right in front of the kid who owned him. It was written up in the paper. The poor kid was despondent. What a nasty thing to do to a kid and his dog. What a complete jerk....I feel just as bad for the dog as for the kid.
 
A Dogs Best Friend said:
That happened around here about a year or so ago. Some guy pulled up in front of a farm type place out of town and stole a Beagle right in front of the kid who owned him. It was written up in the paper. The poor kid was despondent. What a nasty thing to do to a kid and his dog. What a complete jerk....I feel just as bad for the dog as for the kid.
Click to expand...

I live in southeastern Ohio and there were a lot of dog-nappings like that around here a couple of years ago. People would pull up and snatch them right in front of the families. At first I thought it was urban legend stuff until the interviewed a few families on the news. They were usually pure bred dogs so I guess they were being sold.
 
I'm glad you found your dog! :thumbup: It's a horrible feeling when a family member goes missing.

A Dogs Best Friend said:
That happened around here about a year or so ago. Some guy pulled up in front of a farm type place out of town and stole a Beagle right in front of the kid who owned him. It was written up in the paper. The poor kid was despondent. What a nasty thing to do to a kid and his dog. What a complete jerk....I feel just as bad for the dog as for the kid.
Click to expand...

It's a shame the father wasn't around to put a load of 00 Buckshot into the SOB! That's just wrong. That kind of thing will really mess a kid's head up. Heck, it'd mess my head up. Not to mention the poor dog. The kid and the dog both lost their best friends.

Man, that really gets me PO! :mad:
 
I'm glad you got your dog back. I understand how valuable pets can be to a family. I'd defend mine almost as viciously as I'd defend myself.

Also, a bit of advice for pet owners...Please, take the time to train your pet where the limits of its roaming range are. If it is an inside pet, make CERTAIN the animal is trained never to go out an open door without a leash. This is a very reasonable thing to train an animal for, and it isn't that difficult. If you open a door to my house, and LEAVE it open, my pets will at the most stand at the door staring out, they won't exit, even if there is a squirrel on the porch, though in that case they will wake everyone in the house by going nuts requesting to be taken outside.

If it is an outside pet, take the time to make a line your pet can see, whether it is small shrubs or a low "flower fence". If they can see it, they can be trained to stay inside it. It may seem difficult to train them, but it only takes one loved pet lost to make it worth your time next time.

If it is an inside pet that is allowed to go outside on its own for "doing business" Use the outside pet method and train it not to leave the yard.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top