Karen’s good dog karma and a challenge to help wayward dogs

That’s my friend Karen and two of her beloved dogs, Keira and Thumper.

As you may recall from Wednesday’s post, Karen picked up a hitchhiker dog on her way to work one morning last September. In December, she reaped the rewards of her good dog karma:

“Keira and our yellow lab Thumper were playing so hard that they slammed into a panel of my fence, knocked it out, and went for a 6 hour run.  Of course, I was beside myself, driving everywhere to find them. Thankfully they stuck together. I had posted them on every lost dog place I could think of – kcpetconnect, lost dog registry, craigslist and (for the first time) I filled out a report with HomeAgain since that is the chip that Keira has.  At about 6 a.m., a nice girl on her way to the gym called.  She had spotted them running on her street and made it her business to get them into her car and check for tags. It was my turn to be the recipient of the kindness of someone who cares about what happens to dogs that are clearly not supposed to be wandering.”

Karen was also extra lucky because she hadn’t owned Keira very long and her ID tag was kind of makeshift:

“I had attached an old tag that belonged to my sweet Tillie, who died of cancer earlier last year.  On the tag, which still had all my current info, I crossed out Tillie’s name with a Sharpie, and wrote “Keira (“key ruh”)” on the back, then covered both sides with packing tape and trimmed the edges.  (Seems like this could be an easy quick fix for any dog without an ID tag. Just do the same on their rabies tag.) In the end, that is what got both dogs back to me. Of course, I got them both new tags of their own within a few hours of their return.”

But that’s not where the story ends.

Karen didn’t realize it at the time, but because she filed the lost dog report with HomeAgain, hundreds of people in Kansas City, who had opted to receive lost pet alerts when their animal was microchipped, received a social media-ready description of Karen’s dogs and the area where they were last seen.

“The alert I filled out said it would go to vet offices, shelters, and pet rescuers. I can’t imagine how many hundreds of people may have received this email. I’m now in love with the service. Even though I was lucky that Keira was wearing her tag, it gives me great piece of mind that so many people would have been on the lookout for her if I hadn’t found her.”

I was one of the people who received the alert about Karen’s dog, because Charlie Machete has a microchip from the same company. On average, I would say I receive three or four lost pet e-mail alerts from HomeAgain every week. I always read them and try to keep the descriptions in mind, since I seem to be a wayward dog magnet.

So far, I haven’t been good about sharing the lost pet alerts via social media, even though HomeAgain makes that very easy. However, in the spirit of the inspiration for this blog, I vow to begin tweeting the HomeAgain lost pet alerts — and any others — that I receive. I challenge you to do the same, using the hashtag #waywarddog.

Let’s also tweet with that hashtag whenever we run across a wayward dog.

If you haven’t already, please follow me — @Crystalwayward – on Twitter . If you aren’t on Twitter, feel free to share your wayward dog reports via the Facebook fan page for Wayward Dogs.