Maizie (and the reason you should microchip your pets)

I would like to tell you the story of Maizie Mae, my wonderful baby girl.   She is an Australian Shepherd/ACD mix of some sort (we think). I was browsing Craigslist looking for a new member of the family.  I love dogs and wanted to get one for the family after losing our Jack Russell terrier to old age but was just not finding what I was looking for.  I came across an ad titled "Last Chance Rescue" and had to look.  After looking through about 20 pit bulls with a "past", I came across a picture of Maizie.  The ad said that she had been abused and was probably an older dog.  She had also probably been a stray for a long time before she was brought to the Humane Society.  I looked in her eyes and had to have her.  At 10:00 at night, I jumped on the phone to the number provided and lo and behold, someone answered.  Maizie was in a shelter about 2 hours away from our home but the person I talked to said she was bringing some other dogs to our shelter the next day and would be happy to bring her by to see if we wanted her.  I already knew that I wanted her.

Maizie lived with us for a year, the first time.  Unfortunately, we had to "temporarily" re-home her with a friend as we were forced to move into a shelter due to losing our home.  The person we thought would be taking good care of our girl had to be hospitalized and rather than contact us and let us make other arrangements for her, his family just gave Maizie away and we were unable to find out where she was.  This was in November of 2008.  We had since been contacted by our friend and told that Maizie had to be put down due to illness.  We went through the mourning process and realized that there was no way we were ever going to get her back and accepted it and attempted to move on.

On my son's 7th birthday, we checked the mail with him hoping there would be a birthday card for him, but there was a much better present for him.  Both my boys loved Maizie very much and she was my babysitter.  One of her big tricks was to round up the boys at the park.  Heelers really will herd anything they can!!  My 7 year old came back in with the mail and there was a letter from the Humane Society in the area we used to live in telling us that they had Maizie!!  When we got her one of the very first things we did was get her microchipped and registered to our name, address and phone number.  Well, our address and phone number had changed but fortunately our mail was still being forwarded.  We all jumped in the car and drove 45 minutes to the shelter and after looking at EVERY other dog in the shelter, there was Maizie, sitting there looking as if she just knew that I would come and get her.  When I left her to go "bail her out", the howling could be heard over every other dog in the pound.  We took her home and she's been here ever since.  When we got her from the pound, she had mange that has taken almost a year to clear up (undiagnosed for 6 months as allergies!) but other than that she's the same old girl.  We also found out that she's much younger than we originally thought.  Her previous owners had kicked her front teeth in and she was very timid from the abuse.  She has gotten over her fear of men and is now one of my husband's best pals as well.