Lost or found?
How to proceed if you lose your dog when out walking or find a stray
THIS past week, Facebook groups have featured posters of Alma, a small black and white five kilo dog who went missing in the Sella countryside. Luckily after eight days Alma was found.
But what should you do if you lose your dog, or if you find one that looks like it has been lost. Here are some tips on how to proceed...
What to do if you lose your dog
If out on a walk, don’t panic, but act quickly, it is possible that he or she got frightened or took off after a rabbit. Call him back, if you have a recall whistle use it. If no luck, check that he hasn’t found his own way home or if you have moved recently in the same vicinity, check he is not at the old home.
If he was lost in the countryside on a day trip, try leaving a bowl of food and water, together with an item of your clothing in the area you parked your car and check back daily.
After an hour has passed, report him missing on the Rivia (Valencian region) microchip database, you can do this yourself on www.rivia.org, you will need your NIE number and the dog's 15 digit microchip number to access the database. Once you are in, click on the icon 'Denuncias' and then click on 'denunciar extravio o robo'.
Due to the RIVIA data base being hacked last year, before the end of January, access will only be given to those using a digital certificate or using a two phase authentication system which requires that a functioning email address for owner.
Also double check that the contact address and telephone numbers on the database are correct, as your dog might go missing 10 years after being chipped, and if you have moved, changed mobiles and not updated your details, it will take much longer for your pet to be returned to you.
You can also do this by phone on 902 151 640. Your vet can do it for you, if your Spanish is not up to scratch.
Report your pet’s disappearance to the local police, Guardia Civil, National Police and town hall in your municipality. It is also a good idea to alert the local police in surrounding municipalities in a 60 kilometre radius. You will have to give the microchip number to the police as well as the dog's description. And take along his passport.
Make a poster with a photo of your dog, where and when it went missing, include any details that will help identify your pet and your contact number. Especially important is to put where his microchip is located. (See microchip section). Share this on social media; there are many sites for lost pets, both in English and Spanish. Ask your friends to share as well.
Visit veterinary surgeries or rescue centres to see if your dog has been brought in. If no luck, leave them a poster. A good place to place a poster is on the community dustbins of urbanisations near where your pet disappeared. Don’t automatically assume he or she is still in the same area, dogs can travel a long way in a very short period of time.
Get friends involved, organise search parties, always carry a poster or photo with you and ask as many people as you can if they have seen your pet.
If your dog went missing from your home, and your property was broken into, this would be considered by the police as a burglary, make sure you mention this when reporting to the police.
Never lose hope. There have been cases of chipped dogs being returned to their owners years later.
A Yorkshire terrier was found in La Nucia, when it was checked for a microchip, it turns out he was stolen 10 years earlier, his owner had moved to another part of Spain, but she was delighted to be reunited with her pet. Another Spanish family on holiday from Madrid lost their miniature schnauzer while on a Denia beach, they searched high and low, and have given up hope, when they returned the following year, a foreign woman on the beach next to them had a schnauzer, and they went over to say hello and it turned out to be their dog. They had no trouble getting him back as he was microchipped.
What to do if you find a dog?
If the dog looks healthy and isn’t showing aggressive behaviour, try to get close to it, approach it slowly, or crouch down and entice it towards you. A lost or abandoned dog could be quite scared, so take a gentle approach.
Use a soft tone of voice, and throw food or treats towards it. Also if possible offer some water and stand back until the dog has eaten or drunk and is more relaxed, only then try to approach and if you are successful and it is wearing a collar, see if there is a telephone number written or attached to it. If you have some rope or a lead, attach it to the collar: If it is not wearing a collar, then use whatever you have at hand, rope, string, etc.
If the dog is showing fear or aggressiveness, or is seriously injured, keep a safe distance so it doesn’t run away and call the authorities, ideally the municipal police who are obliged to come and scan the dog for a microchip, they will contact the local rescue or pet collection service. If you are in a rural area telephone Seprona (062). They will organise rescue if the dog is in a well or stuck on a mountain ledge.
Applying first aid to an injured stray dog is only advisable if you know exactly what you are doing and how to avoid being bitten.
If the dog has a collar with an address tag or telephone number, phone up the number and inform the owner. Some modern tags have a QR code, which will give full contact details if you scan the number with your smartphone. If nobody answers the phone, then proceed as if he has no collar.
If the dog has no collar, and looks well fed and clean, wait a while in the area in case the owner is close by, if no luck then you will have to, according to the new animal laws, take the dog to the local police or if in a rural area the Guardia Civil, or if you can't catch it, you must call them and ideally wait till they arrive. Both authorities have microchip scanners and have access to the database and it's the quickest way of having a chipped pet reunited with it's owner.
Another advantage to informing police and Guardia Civil is that the dog could have been reported as stolen or missing and they will have the owner’s details. If the dog is not microchipped, the vet or local police will inform the local dog home to come and pick up the dog.
If you wish to, and only having obtained permission from the authorities and local rescue association, foster the dog temporarily until the owners are found. Post a photo on social media. Contact local rescue associations, and place a poster with the dog’s photo and your contact at vet clinics and pet food stores.
And if after 21 days the owner hasn’t turned up, then you can go ahead and apply to adopt him or her, ideally via a contract with your local rescue.
IMPORTANT- Don’t automatically assume that a dog is abandoned, especially if you are near an urbanisation, some pets are real Houdinis or the owners let them out. Perhaps that dog got lost after being frightened or chasing a rabbit.
Ask around nearby houses if the dog is theirs or if they know who the owner is. Bear in mind, there is probably someone extremely worried and looking for their pet.
Also never pick up a dog on a motorway and travel home, take the nearest exit and go to the nearest vet or police station. If the dog doesn’t have a chip, it will be nearly impossible for the owner to find his dog if its 300 kilometres away. And if it is in a different region, it will take a much longer for the owner to be located on the relevant regional registry.
Microchip advice
You will have a much greater chance of being reunited with your pet, if he or she is microchipped. In Spain by law, all dogs, cats and ferrets have to be microchipped by the age of 3 months and have a passport.
The details registered on the microchip register are legally binding; the dog will always legally be the property of the person registered on the database as his owner.
Microchipping is a painless procedure. A recommendation is to have your vet scan your dog six months after he is chipped, and then at least once a year.
This way you know the chip is working, they rarely fail, but this could happen. In the case your chip has failed, your vet will put in a new chip, enter the details on the dog’s passport, and adding the comment that the old chip has failed, or works in an intermittent fashion, in case it decides to work again and suddenly your dog has two chips.
If you have brought your dog over from the UK, or abroad, have it registered on the Valencia region’s database with your Spanish address and telephone contact, your vet can do this. It makes recovery that much quicker, as otherwise, it could take days or weeks to locate your dog’s microchip database, and then it will show your home country address.
Another reason for scanning a chip regularly is that they can move. In Spain, they are inserted under the skin on the left hand side of the neck. In the UK, they are inserted in the loose subcutaneous skin between the shoulder blades. There are cases of dogs having to be x-rayed to try to locate their chips; one dog had his chip travel down to his elbow!
DNA profiling
If you are especially worried that your dog can be stolen, and its microchipped removed, (this has happened), you can have his DNA profile done, this way you can prove it is your dog by a simple saliva test.
This is not expensive to do; laboratories charge around €3050 to do a DNA profile with a certificate of identity. Usually they send you a kit, and your vet takes a swab from inside the cheek, fills in the paperwork and you send it off and within three weeks, you get a certificate back.
Google 'dog dna profiling' to find a laboratory.
Stolen dogs, especially greyhounds, used for breeding have been located this way through their offspring.