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nightlightingstormA real-life event that happened  JUNE of this year....(2014)

Here is a real good reason why you should consider training  all of your pets to be comfortable in a crates. Tonight I received a call. A found female Boston stray, picked up in middle of storm. "...please come get her... I can't find owners and she is fighting with my dogs!" The strange lady pleaded on the phone. She went on to explain " I am leaving early next morning, going out of town I just could not leave dog outside in this storm with tornado warnings, rain wind and thunder." One of the disadvantages of being known in the local area as a Boston Terrier rescue... Who knows how she got my phone number. But there she was, very distraught at the thought of this Boston wondering up to her house in the middle of a storm..    I  have a slight problem do I not? What would you do?  Tell the lady "No! I am not driving in this awful weather to pick up a stray dog? You found it, its your problem?"  Of course not...  You would do what I did go get her...

PROBLEMS KEEP COMING...

So at 10 pm on Sunday I left the safety of my home in the driving rain, I met her about 30 minutes away.  Thunder, lightning you name it. Not the kind of night I would be driving in by choice for sure!

I returned home with a totally unplanned strange dog in my auto.  A Boston that is already anxious due to being lost in a storm. Now there she was. I know nothing about this dog. Is it sick? Is it friendly?  Okay so what the heck do I do with this Boston? It is almost 12pm!

I can not let this dog loose in house.  We have are already 4 fosters here... When I tried to place her in a large crate she almost panicked.  Okay I can put her in the den right?  WRONG! She can jump up and over the doggie door!!!  So now what do I do? It is still storming outside lightning and thunder. That could be adding to her excited behavior.  So thanks to someone not training their dog, and it getting loose, I am having to stay up all night to ensure she doesn't jump over the doggie gate and go after my other rescued foster dogs....

 

Monday this same scared dog will have to go into a vet to be checked out for a chip (no collar) and into a crate at the vets while we try to find the owner. And if no owner is found she will need to be checked out by a vet before I can bring her home.

Going through my head at that time was,  "Now don't you think that owner could have loved their dog enough to have trained for crate. A collar on her with some kind of ID on,  sure would have helped to find her owners.  So sad. "

Oh did I tell you since I was up all night I started posting all over the social media "Lost Dog" announcements. I called every vet where she was found that had an answering machine also leaving messages that I had this lost dog, and posted on every online vet and shelter in the area she had been found. Just in case someone might know of or own this dog contacted them or saw my postings on social media. No sleep, might as well get the basics done. I alerted my rescue that I had her. just in case we needed to intake her if no owner was found.

Then a most amazing series of things started happening

By Monday afternoon,  we were able to reunite her with her family!!

It turned out the owner was in Nashville with a child who was being treated with cancer. Her husband was out looking for a place to move the family closer to where the hospital was. And the teenage  siblings were staying with a relative in their home about three streets over from where the Boston, showed up on the doorstep. The lady that had found her was already on the road. Our angel lady had gone door to door in the rain to all of her neighbors, asking if they had lost or knew of someone who had lost a Boston. Although she did not find her owners, strangely the owners kids were out talking to their neighbors trying to find their moms lost dog. Can you imagine how they must have been feeling about that. Their baby brother in a hospital, slowly dieing of cancer, and they let their moms dog get lost, the dog she really loved... I would not have wanted to have been feeling what they were feeling... Someone gave them the name of the lady that had been at their house the night before. The kids called her, she called me and  hooray!!!! Happy ending... I called the owners kids who were old enough to drive, They came picked up their Boston...

 

Okay so there is three reasons to crate train

1. You have to leave your dog at the vet for any kind of medical treatment.

2.  Your dog escapes your house and gets thrown into a shelter or if lucky like this little one in my story lands up in rescue.

3.  Here is another reason most people do not think about... Remember in the story above, we were under tornado warnings.... Do you know what happens when volunteers find or dig out of demolished homes peoples pets?  They put them in crates in a central location row after row of crates... while trying to keep them safe and locate their owners....

 

Would you at least want to know that being terrified of being in a crate would not be an issue for your best friend? 

Here is what many of our social media friends have said about crate training... and my attempts to locate the owners...
 Tina Wright Horn "I always crate my dog and cats during a storm. You just never know."
 Audrey Brickson  "I have no problem with crates, but I know some people think it is cruel. My dogs love their beds ... Hope you find the owners praying she is at least chipped,.. sad."
Debbie Davis " I crate mine as well...Here is what you should give your dogs if they are that afraid of the storms...Rescue Remedy for dogs works really good 4 drops in mouth or in a little bit of water 1/2."
Tracey Burke Reinhardt "No more crate for my BT he's taking up all the space on my king size bed."
Negeen S Hogan "We crate ours while we're at work during the day. If we don't they would just sit by the door anxiously the entire time and wait for us to come back. They know when they're in their crates that we'll be back at some point. Plus they have gigantic crates and they are pretty cozy in them. And I have a wireless camera set up to watch them any time I want. "