We have 3 little dogs, and we love them. 2 of them are Pugs.

Yesterday, while I was at my office writing, they escaped from our back yard. My wife called me, in tears, to tell me they were gone and she couldn't find them. I dashed home without a second thought to help search the neighborhood.

Within 2 hours we had combed the entire neighborhood twice, talked to neighbors, distributed flyers, and taken out an ad in the paper.

At the end of 4 hours, my son found the dogs at a vet clinic about a mile from our house. One of the vets had seen the dogs wandering a dangerous, busy highway and taken them to the clinic for safe keeping until they were claimed.

Here's the moral: first, if you're a pet owner…make sure your pet is wearing their ID tags at all times.

You never know when they might escape, and had our dogs been wearing their collars we would have been spared several hours of anxiety. Second, consider getting the implanted ID chips available from most veterinarians. You can bet we're getting them ASAP.

If you don't understand why this was so upsetting to us, then you've never given your heart to a dog.