Jake's Progress

At the end of our agility practice last week we realised we’d gained a border collie. It took a moment to realise as our teacher has four collies, and there are as many again in the club, all milling around. But after a quick headcount we realised we really did have an extra collie. We caught hold of him: a very handsome entire dog, well looked after, quite chilled round the other dogs and not fussed about the equipment. With no collar or other visible ID. H’mm. We thought the worst. Had someone decided to ditch their dog right next to the one place where it would be looked after? It’s not unknown.

Then we realised that the dog looked familiar. Just like a dog that lives on the far side of the park where we practice, who used to come to the club last summer. We said that dog’s name … the collie looked up - yup, it was Rolo. Luckily our trainer still had a number for Rolo's people in her phone. One quick call and a few minutes later Rolo was collected by his family – he’d escaped from his back garden. He’s on his way to be micro-chipped and we hope, to wear a collar and ID. You need both as backup – belt and braces!

Seriously, in the UK it's the law that dogs wear ID which identify a contact phone number and a home address (not everyone seems to know about the address). The shortest way to express a UK postal address on a dog tag is nn/postcode where nn is your house number. We have both our mobile numbers on Jake’s collar as well as our landline. I’ve been able to return a lost dog to its people in a car park near a local beauty spot because their mobile number was on the dog’s ID.

You might be thinking that Jake sports a collar tag the size of a dinner plate, but fortunately this is not the case. We swear by the flat collar tags supplied by Indigo Collar Tags (in the UK). They hold several lines of information and sit flush to the collar. This style of collar/ID is the only one permitted in KC agility shows! And more to the point they don’t fall off / get snagged in bushes every couple of months.

Labels: Agility