October 4th, 2008- Rigby’s Big Adventure

This is Rigby’s story. Rigby, and her mother Eleanor, (yes, we named them after the Beatles song Eleanor Rigby) were rescued from the Marion Grant County Humane Society back in January of 2008. Eleanor and her puppy were found in a trash can in Marion. They were taken to the humane society, who was overcrowded anyways. ARF representatives Nikki Stephenson and Dana Salkoski were up pulling some dogs to help lighten the load, and heard about these two and what they had already been through, and went ahead and pulled the two of them. They went back to Nikki’s house to be fostered until Rigby was big enough for adoption. Rigby was with Nikki for a month before she was big enough for her shots, spay, and other vetting. At the time of her spay, she was also microchipped. Quickly after her spay, she was put up for adoption on petfinder.com . She was adopted by a family in Noblesville, IN with big, fenced backyard. Rigby was with them for just a few days when a tragedy occured. Rigby either slipped out of the fenced yard, or was intentionally taken from the yard. In any matter, when Rigby didn’t come in after a few minutes outside, her family went out to get her and found she was missing. They immediately went out and looked around their neighborhood, thinking she just got out and they would quickly find her. After several hours passed, her family called ARF to report her missing. ARF began calling the local shelters and vets offices. The family ran ads and hung signs all over. Because Rigby had just been spayed, and did have a microchip, after days went by and she didn’t turn up, we had two thoughts: either something happened to her and was dead somewhere, or she was intentionally being held by someone who didn’t want to return her. Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. ARF director Nikki Stephenson kept her microchip paperwork handy in the office of ARF in the event Rigby ever turned up, but things didn’t look good. After two months, Rigby’s family came up and adopted another dog. The family missed Rigby, but the children were desperate for a dog, and we were never sure if we would see Rigby again. 8 months later, on October 2nd, we got the call from HomeAgain that Rigby had been picked up by Indianapolis Animal Care and Control and they had scanned her for a microchip, and had were able to trace her back to ARF! We immediately went down and picked her up and brought her back to ARF. We have no idea what happened to her, where she went, or how she was treated while she was gone. But now she is back at ARF, and we can finally rest easy knowing that she is safe and alive, loved and cared for.