I had a coon dog with collar show up at my kennels about 10 years ago. It wouldn’t let me near it for several days. I would leave a bowl of food and water out. After about 5 days it was completely fine with me and I was able to read the tag on the collar. Called the number and the gentleman was very leery when I told him I had his hound. He showed up and after talking with him, he said he lost it over a month ago and close to 100 miles away.
My guess is someone picked it up (stole) and was trying to hunt it and it once again was lost.
Anyway, they left the owner’s collar on so he got his dog back.
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That happens. A local went into Safeway, leaving his collared/tagged Lab in the back of his PU. Came out, the dog was gone.
All the usual followed to find, including reward posted, no luck.
The next summer he came out of the same store and found his Lab, sans collor and tag, sitting in the PU bed, ecstatic to see him. I'm guessing the "new owner"t got a little careless, and the dog took care of the rest.
This - on a lighter note:
When we moved back to Ak in 1980, after two years Outside, we were dead broke, with one vehicle, and me un-employed. A friend let us live in his wood-heat, no amenenities cabin out of town. The windows were just clear plastic, but boy did that barrel stove work!
One weekend, Bud (the owner) was down and stayed over. Saturday morning, my wife took our rig to work at the school, 25 miles away. Just after she left, I let the Lab out. It was probably -10 out, so after a couple hours i got concerned, called, shot rifle in air - no luck bring the dog back after another hour..
I figured he must have gone after my wife, so Bud and I went looking in his rig.
Sure enough, a couple miles down the highway, there he was, loping along on the snow machine trail in the ditch on the way home. We stopped, he stopped, and looked at me like, "Am I in trouble?",
I got out, held the back door open, told him to to "get in". He did, gave Bud an ear lick, then when I got in, I got one too. We turned around and started back, when I noticed some white on his chest. Brushed the frost off, only it was 3 white hairs.... My dog didn' have any, and my dog had a chipped canine (which I checked for) - this one didn't.
"Bud, we have to turn around - this isn't my dog!"
We took him the half mile back to where we picked him up, and dumped him out.
He just stood there looking at us:... "I can't believe this chit...! You were giving me a ride home!"
Had it not been for the 3 white hairs and canine tooth check, I'd have had me a free dog....
Bud growled: "That's the trouble with Labs; all them black folk look alike!"
When we got back to the cabin, my dog was sitting on the porch with a "Where the heck have you guys been?" look on his face.
Must have been an in-heat bitch somewhere within a mile or so (There was about 4' of snow on the ground, too.)
