We had friends over for a cookout last night, and as we're sitting around drinking on our deck shortly after dusk, a critter emerges from the woods and starts making a b line for the lot of us. In his typical comical overreaction, my buddy freaks out and screams "Coyote!" as he jumps about 10 feet out of his chair, but no, it's just this little girl.
Swmbo and I chased her around the garage for about ten minutes before we were able to snag her and get a leash on her, only to find she had no ID tags of any sort, just a collar for an electric fence. She appears to be a Shiba Inu, which SWMBO's sister also happens to own. We dubbed her Susan for the time being.
As it turns out, 10 oclock on a Saturday night is a less than ideal time to find a lost dog with no identification - vet, shelters, ect all closed and not answering the phones, too late to go bang on random doors. The whole lot of us now focused on getting on getting Susan home, we scoured lost and found ads and put a post up on Facebook, which I figured wouldn't be of much use but was about all we could do at the time. Meanwhile, I fixed her accommodations for the night, keeping her separate from our dog and two cats.
Lo and behold, after enduring several hours of yipping and whining early in the morning, we awoke to find someone had replied to the FB post who had found her before and together were able to figure out her exact address. We also learned that 'Susan' is actually called 'Bella'. SWMBO returned her home to a young family with kids and we found out she had been missing since Wednesday.
This is now the 4th lost dog we have been able to return home in the <2 years we have been in this house, but the first with no ID or to spend the night. My poor dog Bear was very gracious about sharing his space with a strange new pup, but I think we were all glad to see her go home this morning - Shibas are not the breed for us lol.
Shibas are amazing escape artists, but I suspect you know that.
Shibes are one of my favorite breeds, good on you for being such an awesome neighbor!
My daughter found a lost German Shepard this past Saturday evening (around 8pm). No collar tag or anything. Luckily she found the owner in less than an hour or so with the help of neighbors. Sad part was the owner did not seem overly concerned what happened to his dog.
Your are correct on the timing of finding a loose pet late on a Sat evening. When she called me to tell me she was trying to track down the home for this lost dog, she really got mad at me when when I suggested she call animal control aka dog catcher. How times have changed.
There are a bunch of dogs that wander through our yard. Most of them are just curious as to what I'm doing or what our cats are doing. I see some of them several times a year so I assume they are making their rounds before heading home.
They are trying to empty out the shelters in Los Angeles as much as possible in anticipation of all the dogs they will get as the result of the July 4th explosion festival. (Yes, fireworks are generally illegal in California / LA for obvious reasons).
In reply to DrBoost :
Actually, I can't recall Kali, SWMBO's sister's dog, ever getting out for a significant period of time. She has the physique of a pretzel nugget, so I don't think she'd make it very far anyway lol.
Found a beagle running loose in my neighborhood headed for the main road (4 lanes, two each way, 55mph, and busy). Was able to catch it and take it to the owner on the tag. They almost seemed pissed that I knocked on their door. 
In reply to drainoil :
I tried calling just to see if anyone had reported the dog missing or something, but of course got no answer. I don't think I could ever actually send a found pet to the shelter, I'd house it myself even on an indefinite basis if that's what it came to. We had a Beagle when I was growing up who would bolt at any chance he got, which resulted in him getting lost on a number of occasions. Only once that I recall was he gone overnight, and that was when someone up the road picked him up and called the shelter. Took us two or three days to even think of calling there, since the nearest shelter was like 40+ min away, but when we picked him up we were rather disturbed to find they would only house dogs for 5-7 days before euthanizing them.
One day when we were doing landscaping a strange dog comes into our yard, and it was limping/carrying one leg really bad. I thought it had been hit by a car. It came up, wanted petted and laid down like it owned the place. I found the neighbor it belonged to. He said, "It hasn't been hit, it's got cancer in its hip real bad. It's been such a good dog that we can't stand to put it down. We give it a lot a of pain meds and that makes it make some dumb decisions like wandering off."
So whenever he would show up me and wife would call the dog "Towelie", because he keeps getting high and wandering off.
Blessings to you for being willing to spend the energy returning dogs to their homes.
We've had 2 "regulars" over the years.
The first was a German Shepard and either Husky or Malamute mix named Shadow. She had a tag with the owners phone # on it. She would show up 5 or 6 times a year. Lived a couple of miles away and I think after the first couple of times with us giving her food and water she started to make us a regular stop. She would get out and wander all day then show up at our door around 6-7 in the evening. Her owner called us a few weeks after putting her down to let us know she wouldn't be coming by any more.
Second one was a large white dog (unknown breed) named Carson that lived the next street over. They had young kids who would forget to shut the gate so he got out every few weeks. Once I found out where they lived, I didn't even bother calling. I'd play with him until he got tired and give him some water then put the leash on him and walk him back home. They moved away a few years ago.
mtn
MegaDork
7/4/18 12:06 a.m.
secretariata said:
Second one was a large white dog (unknown breed) named Carson that lived the next street over. They had young kids who would forget to shut the gate so he got out every few weeks. Once I found out where they lived, I didn't even bother calling. I'd play with him until he got tired and give him some water then put the leash on him and walk him back home. They moved away a few years ago.
Sounds like a Great Pyrenees. Wonderful dogs, but their instinct is to expand their territory so to speak. They need a fence; they were born to wander.
Here’s Milo contemplating how to get out:
mtn said:
Sounds like a Great Pyrenees. Wonderful dogs, but their instinct is to expand their territory so to speak. They need a fence; they were born to wander.
Here’s Milo contemplating how to get out:
If you photo is of a Great Pyrenees then that was not the breed. Had much shorter hair like a Dalmatian, but was larger and thicker (Edit: than an Dalmatian) with no black spots.
Furious_E said:
In reply to DrBoost :
Actually, I can't recall Kali, SWMBO's sister's dog, ever getting out for a significant period of time. She has the physique of a pretzel nugget, so I don't think she'd make it very far anyway lol.
When I was a kid, I knew someone who had a Chihuahua named "Lady". Lady had been fed a diet of raw chicken in a previous life, so all her teeth fell out. Lady also weighed 20lb.
Physique of a pretzel nugget is the perfect description for her.
One of our horses escaped from our east paddock sometime last night. Had a knock on the door at 6am this morning. One of our neighbours was on their way to work and came upon a horse standing in the middle of the road. He was pretty happy to see me since there’s no hay or water in the middle of the road.
