It's National Dog Day!  If you're a dog owner, there's a good chance you love your dog like a family member.  So what would you do if they got lost?

If it gets found, will someone who doesn't know that dog, be able to find you to get it back to you?

We had an experience over the weekend where a dog wandered up to us at our house.  He was a really nice dog and we could tell that someone was missing him.  He was well cared for, he had a collar on with a rabies vaccination tag, but that was it.

There wasn't anything on him to get in touch with the owners for a situation like this.

We did what we could to find his family.  We went up and down our road and asked neighbors yet no one knew where he came from.

It's always safest to call the police or dog control officer from your town, but we were hoping to save this family the money to retrieve their dog and the authorities the trouble of searching them out.

Luckily, someone who knew his family was paying attention to facebook that day.  They were able to identify the dog, and we were able to get him home.  It turns out, he wasn't from our town.  His owners were visiting family that day and he somehow escaped.

No big deal.  I love dogs so I was happy to hang out with him for as long as it took.  But it would have been a lot quicker if there was a name and a phone number on his tag.  This way when they're found, you know with 100% accuracy that the number that's going to get them home to their owner.  There's a good chance that he doesn't run away often, but this is a good example of why a tag would be incredibly helpful.

At the very least, make sure you have your dogs microchipped so that if they do have to be turned over to a dog control officer, they can get home as soon as possible.  Keep those pets safe!