As people age, sometimes their powers of observation and their ability to remember fades. So when Debbie Patterson, a grandmother, got home from picking her daughter's Yorkshire Terrier up from the groomer's and thought something was wrong, she started to question her mind.
Chloe, the Yorkie, had gone for a long time without a haircut and needed one badly. So of course when Patterson picked the dog up, she expected her to look different, but not this different!
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As the groomer put little Chloe in the carrier, she eagerly licked his face. Yes, that was definitely a Chloe thing to do. But wow! Her coat really looked different. It was quite a bit shorter, and Patterson thought the change in color was because of the grooming. There was, she said, a lot more red in her coat.
Once she got home, she put Chloe up on the couch. Usually, the little dog would hop right off. This time, she worriedly paced from one end of the couch to the other. "What's the matter with you?" Patterson asked. She thought Chloe was acting very strange. Then the cat came in, and Patterson's mind was made up. She was sure she had the wrong dog when the cat bristled and hissed at the Yorkie.
Patterson called her daughter and exclaimed, "I think I've got the wrong dog!" About that time, the grooming parlor called. The asked her if her dog had a collar on when she came because they were pretty sure they put a collar on the wrong dog. Patterson said, "It's not the collar! You gave me the wrong dog!" Turns out that another family had brought their own recently-adopted Yorkie — also called Chloe — to be groomed on the same day. When they picked up "their" Chloe, her collar was missing.
Needless to say, the groomers were very embarrassed. But their mistake is one anyone could have made. Both dogs look surprisingly alike, and the employee who made the switch was new. "It was a case of mistaken identity! It almost caused Grandma to have a heart attack," Patterson's daughter said. "When we got home, my Chloe was running around, jumping on and off the couch. I thought, ‘Now how in the world did it take me that long to figure out that other Chloe wasn’t my dog?’" Grandma may never live it down!
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How well do you know your own dog? A white spot on Chloe's belly was the final determination that proved which dog was which. If you had to describe your own pooch, could you do it? One sure-fire way of discerning one dog from another is to have your furbuddy micro-chipped. Check with your vet or local shelter to get this possibly crucial procedure done before you have to prove your own powers of discernment!