Veterinary Tails, February 2018
A few years ago we had a client come in with a beautiful Golden Retriever puppy that they bought from an ad on Craig’s List. The owner was beaming and the puppy was cute as a button looking like something out of a commercial. We vaccinated the little girl and dewormed her and talked with the proud new owner about diet, socialization, spaying, preventative meds, and all the usual first visit stuff. Before leaving, the owner asked if we could place a microchip. We took the puppy to the treatment area to place her chip. We always scan a pet before we place a chip to make sure they are not already microchipped. Wouldn’t you know it? This puppy was already microchipped!
The microchip was registered to a family up in San Francisco. We left a message for them that we had their puppy down in Templeton and they should call us right away. About 3 minutes later they called us back sounding ecstatic. They said that about 3 weeks ago they were walking the puppy with their kids in Golden Gate Park when a stranger asked if they could pet the puppy. When they said “ok”, the stranger dogsnatched the puppy and ran away. They had filed police reports and were watching all the local classifieds but they couldn’t find their puppy anywhere.
When we relayed the story to our client they were crushed. They went from proud loving new puppy parent to scammed on Craig’s List all in the course of about 5 minutes. Despite the rush of conflicting emotions, our client new what they had to do. 4 hours later they were pulling into SF to reunite the puppy with her family. The family was so happy that they gave a reward to our client; they would purchase them a Golden Retriever puppy of their own to say thank you for all they did. 2 weeks later our client was back in the same exam room with a different Golden Retriever Puppy. We started all over with our visit and laughed about love lost and found again all in the span of a few weeks.
