I am often puzzled by modern life.

That reminds me of people queuing for the latest Harry Potter book some years ago.
I also knew somebody at Southampton who, on a Saturday, would catch the 0500 hr train at St Denys get to London about 0600 hrs and go and queue for cheap tickets/returns at The Royal Opera House for the matinee performance or that evenings performance. Generally they were around twentieth or thirtieth in the queue on arrival.

 

We met a dog on our walk this morning. It was happily walking with some people who have horses there, but they said it's not theirs and the dog then promptly started walking with us.

We turned back away from the road and spent half an hour walking about to see if the owner turns up.

A lady walking her own dog came to the rescue and immediately posted on local Facebook group (which I thought was quite clever), and then when no-one turned up, told that she can take the dog to a local vet in her car.

Walking towards her house with the dog leashed with my scarf a car turned up and the owner very happily claimed her dog.

Now this is what puzzles me: The dog had an airtag (a clever little tracker that you can follow on your phone) on his collar but no phone number

The owner explained that he has the Airtag because he is known to wander off.

Why would one first of all let a dog free if it is in a habit of getting lost, and why would one trust an Airtag that needs regular charging and can fail, but not do the low- tech solution and write the phone number on the collar?

Happy ending and a pleasant morning chatting with friendly strangers (that's the North East norm ), but the dog owner's reliance on tech only puzzles me a bit.

 

I'm almost certain that it's law to have a name and address on the dogs collar, normally on a tag, when out in public, we always have a phone number as well and another different one embroidered on the collar itself.

We get a few dogs that seemingly don't have an owner and most of the time it's because the owner lost the dog, not because the dog ran off. I see it all the time, a dog stops and sniffs or plays with another dog whilst the owner just wanders off or is staring at their phone.

It's hard when you find a dog as well. Our neighbour came round with one recently that they had found wandering the road. It didn't have a collar as it had escaped a garden. In the old days you could take it to the nearest vet, they would scan it and call the owners but now they turn you away and direct you to the local hub. This hub for us is a vets that's about 20 miles away and it's where our neighbour took the dog, which turned out to be one of two that had got out from a garden about 50 yards from where the neighbour lived. They had done a door to door knock, as had the other person who found the other dog, but no one knew who they belonged to. Still the dog apparently enjoyed the car ride.

 

I've taken a cat that I thought was ill to the vets and they scanned it, but they are not allowed to tell you who the owner is, but usually take the animal in until the owner collects it.

Perhaps some vets dont have the space to do that.

I only have my phone number on my dogs tag, not even the dogs name, if he's lost they don't need to know that, if he's stolen its to their advantage.

 

Not only pets which need some ID but people too. A few years ago, an elderly lady walking her dog collapsed on the pavement across the road from me. With the help of a passerby, I managed to get her into the house and settled her and little dog on the sofa. I "knew" her as such often having a quick chat when I saw her out with her dog. However, altho I knew she lived on her own in the village, I didn't know where. In her late 80's, she couldn't remember her address nor could she remember the phone no. of her daughter who lived in another area. I had already called an ambulance and after they had taken her to hospital, I then spent hours phoning around to get a number for the daughter - eventually succeeded only to find she wasn't particularly interested !! At least word had got around and one of her neighbours turned up the following day to collect the little dog. The dog hadn't made a sound since the lady went off in the ambulance but was over the moon when the neighbour turned up so they obviously knew each other

 

Vets here are required to scan any "lost" animal to see if it had a microchip and then check for tattoos in the ear which are the old way of showing a dog or cat has an owner.

I took a dog I found running along a village road in pouring rain and looking unloved. No marks so we bathed him, dried him, trimmed the worst knots form his terrier coat and posted photos to the local council and local social groups on FB. His farmer owner turned up to fetch him the next day.

The cat we found and fed for a while before catching him had no chip, wasn't neuetered, had wounds as well as being almost blind with eye ulcers when finally caught and, after a blood test, FIV too so was put to sleep tout de suite. i was really upset, still am, as he was beautiful and it took me months to get him to trust me enough to pick him up and give him meds and a good cuddle and brushing.

 

It's not our dogs name on the tag but our surname. I'm fairly sure it's law, or used to be, to have your name, address and phone number. The same info is now on the micro chip which they need by law, so that may have changed.

It's also not a lack of space at the vets, they just work as a hub and this one branch does all the out of hours or more serious stuff plus the day to day things the other vets don't want to do. I'm not sure how they are all connected because we are talking about pets@home and smaller local firms but they seem to pass a lot on. I miss the days of independent vets.
We took a hedgehog up to pets@home and they more or less told us to sod off. Any vet used to treat wild animals for free but they wanted none of it. It wasn't long ago that they would look after them until the local hedgehog carer would come and get it. Our friend used to do it but shed recently had a heart attack and we were due to be away.

Our neighbour took a cat when they would scan them and they took it in and called the owners. The very next day the cat turned up at her house again, so she took it back and asked where it came from. They said because of data protection that they couldn't tell her and equally wouldn't pass on her details for the owners to collect if it went missing again. In the end it came back to her and it just lived with her.

 

I tend to think of "pets at home" as more of a sales place with a vets as a sideline, it is around here anyway.
I have a place "Vets For Pets", just up the road from me, there is another vets surgery about the same distance away, I dont use either, I use one that it about 3 miles away where they do all kinds of animals and the smaller vets send some of their more difficult cases to.

I'm not sure about wildlife, but they definitely take in stray dogs and cats, we do have a fairly local hedgehog rescue centre and a fox rescue reasonably local.

 

I used to work for the PDSA in the early '70's and we took in both domestic strays and wild animals and birds. Fees for domestic pet treatments were dependant on what the client could afford. Wildlife treatment was free . Bit different these days.

 

Pets@home is definitely a sales place with a vets attached @pete but it wasn't long back that you could take a stray or wild animal in there and they'd be treated. I think it's actually coincided with lockdown when they stopped everything and just didn't go back.
The other vets that use this hub are, as far as I know, disconnected from each other. They are just smaller local firms who now seem to push you to this one place when it's something they don't want to deal with.

I remember as a kid coming home from school and finding a new dog had turned up. Most of the time they had been wandering the street and were waiting for their owners to come pick them up but I do remember taking a couple to the local police station. I don't think they be very helpful nowadays.

 

We got our dog ( a stray ) from a local police kennels in 1967. He was probably about 18 months old then and lasted 15 years.
As @Thevictorian said, I don't think the police are interested in strays nowadays.

 

There are dog wardens around here these days, have been for years.
I remember people letting the dog out in the morning and they used to roam around as a pack of strays, just going back home at night to be fed.
It was fairly normal to come across a few dogs wandering.

Bit like the Kids really.

But the dog wardens stopped all that, never see a stray nowadays.

 

In Nepal, all the dogs were technically strays but we were told they all had someone who fed them. They looked in good health and this was all on a diet of curries, which I'm sure my dog would enjoy going in but not so much coming out.