Alice, a 10-year-old Maltese, went missing May 17, 2006, from her home in Peacock Gap in San Rafael. Her family had left the garage door open and, within minutes, Alice was nowhere to be found.

The family began a frantic search for their beloved pet. They posted lost dog flyers around the neighborhood and in local veterinary offices and pet stores. They also placed missing pet ads in local newspapers and filed a lost report at the Marin Humane Society. They received several phone calls from people who thought they had seen Alice in the Canal area of San Rafael, but unfortunately, they weren't able to locate her.

Five months later, a woman found a very matted and dirty Maltese with an eye injury and no identification wandering the streets of the Canal. She was kind enough to bring the dog home with her and call the Marin Humane Society so that an officer could come get the dog. Despite being in such poor condition, the dog still bore a resemblance to the picture of Alice on her lost report and, being responsible for our lost and found services, I called the family to come see if she was their Alice. And she was!

Where had Alice been this whole time? Reportedly, a family who lived in the Canal had purchased Alice from an unknown party in June. That fall, Alice had gotten away from them, too, and so both families were looking for what they believed to be their dog. Alice, of course, went back to her original family, while the other family was left feeling regretful that they had purchased a lost dog.

The original family followed all of the proper procedures for finding their missing pet. They immediately went in person to their local animal shelter to file a lost report. They provided a photograph to help identify their pet. They posted lost pet flyers all around the location where Alice went missing (sample flyers are available at the shelter and on the MHS Web site) and they placed ads in local newspapers and online. Because all shelters have stray holding periods for animals, they also visited the shelter a couple times a week for the first few months and then continued to visit periodically up to the week before she was found.

Unfortunately, Alice was not microchipped. "One of the frustrating things about this was that we had been thinking we should have her chipped, but never got around to it," her owner says.

While every county requires that dogs be licensed and display the issued tag, which many owners pair with ID tags, microchips are beneficial because, unlike collars, they cannot be removed or lost. About the size of a grain of rice, microchips are injected beneath the skin between the shoulder blades. Each microchip contains a number, which is run through a database providing owner information. When you move, it's important to call the Humane Society to update your owner information so that you can be contacted if your animal is ever lost and then found.

Losing a pet is a heart-wrenching experience. Sadly, not all missing animals find their way home, but you can increase your odds of finding your pet by remaining diligent, following the recommended lost and found procedures, and not giving up. Even though Alice had been missing for nearly six months, her family had continued looking for her. And because of that, their local animal shelter had continued looking for her, too.

"The tenacious persistence and compassion of the people at the Marin Humane Society resulted in our joyful reunion with Alice," says her happy family.

Rachel Winner is a customer care representative at the Marin Humane Society.

Tails of Marin appears every Saturday in the Home & Garden section of the Marin Independent Journal