Safely Home: So Much Love To Share

Iris has slipped away quite a few times. She did it last year on New Year’s Eve and was gone a couple of weeks. The people who’d found her had put a sign outside their house but they lived quite a ways away from us. One of their kids suggested going to a vet and that’s how we got her back. This time, because Iris’s hair is really thick and sleek – she’s an Alaskan Malamute – she can pull out of her collar. She had just been put on a long line to go outside when she must have got out of her collar and my husband couldn’t find her. Again, she was gone about two weeks. We let all the shelters know and ran an ad in the paper. When she was found, she was wearing a new collar. She had clearly been picked up by someone and escaped from them too! She was taken to be identified, finally, when someone else in a car nearly hit her. The chip has reunited us at least four times! Now she has to go on a choke chain because otherwise she will pull out of it. As well as the strangers who cared for her when she got loose, Iris has had three or four previous owners before me. It’s taken her a long time to realize she needs to stay here. She’s extremely friendly, so if she escapes, the first thing she’ll do is look for people, especially kids. She is a huge dog and some would be leery of her. They shouldn’t be – Iris is all about wanting love.