Bean the pug apparently wanted a walk. What she got was a ride in a police car, a booking photo, and eventually a reunion with her family in Cape May, New Jersey.
The little pug slipped out of her home and was wandering the neighborhood alone until Cape May police picked her up. She had no tag connecting her to anyone, so officers had no way to know who she belonged to. Rather than wait for a phone call that might never come, the department put her photo online. Someone posed Bean behind the bars of a holding cell for a “pugshot,” and the joke did the work.
The post spread quickly, and someone who recognized Bean got in touch with her owner. Police Chief Anthony Marino told The Dodo that finding the owner was the entire point, since nobody at the station knew who she was when she arrived. Social media reaches a lot of people fast, and here that reach turned a cute photo into a reunion.
What this means for your dog: a lost dog with no identification is a stranger to whoever finds them. A tag on the collar handles the common case. A microchip covers the times a dog slips a lead or squeezes under a fence. That played out in Miami, where a police K-9 bolted from a patrol car. Update the phone number on your dog’s microchip registration when you move, because a chip pointing at a dead line helps nobody. If your dog goes missing, copy what worked here: a clear photo, pushed out fast to local Facebook groups and Nextdoor, is often what brings them home.
The full story is at iHeartDogs.