Catch a Wave and You'll Be Sitting On Top of the World

Sophia admires the coming sunset and incoming tide from Alki Point.

I rushed home from my shift as "MatchMaker" at the Seattle Animal Shelter and bundled Sophia into the car to go find some sunshine. It was 43 degrees out - she wore her purple Polartec jacket and I had several layers on and gloves. The breeze on the beach makes it seem much colder than it is and the sun only helps a little bit.

I am so thankful that I was able to adopt Sophia before she was put into a shelter environment. It's very noisy, with all the barking. The dogs are competing for attention from all of the visitors or just trying to tell us something. Sophia is very sensitive and she would have been super messed up if she had ended up in that sort of environment. She has a long memory as it is - we were rushed by a white pit bull on our evening walk over a week ago and we saw a dog today at Alki Point that had a similar build and Sophia was straining against the leash to go any direction but towards that animal.

It's not that it's "sad" to see all these dogs waiting for new homes - I think dogs available for adoption are a good thing - there are many dogs there on hold that are not available for adoption yet due to legal issues or timing of how long the owner gets to claim the dog. But possible adopters are able to get "first choice" when a particular dog does become available, and I was happy to see people have put dibs on so many of the dogs. It was unusual to see a shih tzu there - he had been found loose somewhere but wearing a blue tie-dyed shirt so obviously he just got away. The problem here is that the animal didn't have any tags on - and no microchip.

Now, my cats don't have microchips in them, but Sophia was given one when she was a puppy so when she came to us we registered her in the HomeAgain program "for life" so she will be returned to us if she got away from me and happened to lose her collar. If you have a dog that doesn't have a microchip you seriously should consider having them put one in the off chance your dog gets away from you and/or lose their collar, so they still might get back to you! I can't imagine losing Sophia and not knowing what happened to her. The guilt would just kill me.

So here's your friendly reminder/warning - get your dog microchipped if you haven't already! And then REGISTER IT with the appropriate service.