At first we thought that the dog we found on Saturday was a stray, but we were hopeful we would find the owner because she recently updated her information with Homeagain microchip pet recovery center. So we decided to call Homeagain about Mr. B's information and found out that he was never enrolled in their services. Which would mean that they would have no means of identifying him, even though he is microchipped. We did some research and decided to enroll in the AKC CAR, because of their lifetime enrollment fee of $17.50, as opposed to Homeagain, which is $14.99 per year. So if Mr. B is ever lost, kind people will take him to get scanned and the company would call us to inform us that he has been found. I hope we never have to use the service though.
This past Saturday was quite an adventurous one. We received a phone call at 9 am from a friend of ours that was frantic because while she was getting into her car after a jog through Humboldt Park a pit bull jumped into the back seat of her car and curled up to sleep. Before we drove out to help our friend, we called our friend Curtis Scott for some advice. First he told us that the dog was friendly. It would not willingly hop into a person's car and curl up and sleep if it was not friendly. Since he thought the dog was friendly, we should not call Animal Care and Control because the dog might not get claimed in 5 days and get destroyed. So the first thing we did after we met the dog and determined that it was friendly, was take him to the vet to get scanned for a microchip. It was lucky for us and the owner that he was microchipped and the microchip center called the owner and informed her that we have her dog. After a few hours, the owner and the dog was reunited. The owner told us that he has tags and she doesn't know what happened to them. On his collar was the ring for a tag, so the tag was probably ripped off while the dog was lost. At least that was not his only means of identification.
One of our biggest fears is the pooches flying through the windshield in an accident. So we started our research on transporting our dogs at Bark Buckle Up. We went with the Petbuckle Pet Harness, because of the ease of use. The buckles make the harness very easy to put on and take off. In addition, the dogs are secure in the harness, so they cannot escape and the straps are really heavy duty so there is no fear of breaking or tearing. Now we can drive to and fro mom's house with our pooches without any fear.
They were predicting huge thunderstorms, so the pooches wore their raincoats. Luckily, it was a rain free day. Mr. B made some friends. They were completely exhausted after the 2.5K walk.
When you get a dog, expect to hear jingling at all times of the day and night, like an annoying ghost.
We purchased the Big Agnes Big House 4 for our trip to pick up Mr. B in Kalamazoo, Michigan. With the tent we also purchased the tent footprint and the vestibule. Even with two big dogs, there was plenty of room. The high ceiling was really nice, because there was a lot of headroom and A could almost stand up completely. Without the rain fly, there are plenty of windows for cross winds and the rain fly kept us dry, even though it was storming at night. In addition, the vestibule kept all of our gear out of the tent but dry. We plan to go on more camping trip, so we can really make good use of all the tent's features.
