A friend found a dead dog in the woods near my house. I went along to see if I could help identify it. While the images that follow help to understand the story, they are not strictly necessary. If pics of a pet dog in advanced state of decay will upset you, leave them unfocused.
The dog had no collar, had obviously been there for a while and had parts missing.
My pet chip scanner got a read immediately so as the local authorities had been informed, there was nothing more to do but head home.
I searched the pet chip databases: first my local region, then Northern Italy and finally the various European databases. I finally got a hit on the Ukrainian database.
Pet microchipping is only as useful as the data it leads you to and in this case all it revealed was the address of the vet who implanted the chip. No info about the dog’s species, gender, age etc
Given how far it’s final resting place was from Ukraine made me wonder what that cybermutt had seen in its short life…
It was chipped in Хотин (Khotyn) which is quite close to the Romanian border. The female members of its human family (men of fighting age were not allowed to leave unless the family contained 4 or more children) were probably wealthy enough to drive to the border and two years on are still living in Italy, waiting for the war to end.
At the beginning of the conflict dogs coming across were given European pet passports which would have shown up on reading the chip so either their family hid them from Romanian border control or they came across after checks were abandoned.
I now have the vet’s number so I’ll be calling this morning to see if anyone has a record of the dog and its owners. Khotyn is far enough away from the front lines that there is a chance that the war has not reached there yet.
I’ve hit a dead end: the phone number is wrong or no longer in use so I haven’t been able to contact the vet.
I’ve written to the microchip database to see if they can shed light on our refugee cyber pup but given the situation there this might be the end of the road for this little enquiry.
