Safely Home: Thank Heavens For The Chip

This little girl came to us after being found abandoned on the side of the road in an area that was obviously used for disposing of unwanted refuse. She was three months old or so, mostly bald from mange, covered in sores, emaciated and the only survivor of an obvious litter cull. After months of physical rehabilitation she was well enough to spay and have microchipped. It took years of rehabilitation to gain trust in people and to get her mentally ready for life in a home with a family. So we let her go to her new home were she successfully transitioned into her new adopted life. After two short months she got out the front door and quickly got lost. I was sure someone had seen her running and picked her up. I posted some lost posters around town, drove all over calling her and then went back home to wait. She had recently been bathed and groomed so unfortunately her collar and tags were not on her. So three weeks passed and a call came in that a Collie was spotted a few miles from her adoptive home. I drove to the adopters’ home and began searching the area again, with no luck. I was at the point of giving up all hope of ever seeing her again because the area she was lost in does not have a leash law, nor do they microchip or even check for chips in most instances. When I received a phone call from PetLink saying that Gracie had been found two weeks after the sighting, my heart leaped for joy and the tears started. I had a hard time keeping them in when I went to go pick her up. The experience was so traumatic I decided to keep her and not return her to the adopters’ home.
The miraculous part of this story is that the person who found Gracie is a vet at a clinic I have used several times over the years for chipping and other services. She does not work in the same county she lives in. So, when Gracie wandered up to her home she never thought that Gracie was a lost dog, because dogs wander all the time near her home because they have no leash law in her county. So when Gracie had been hanging around for two weeks she assumed she was abandoned. She took her into her clinic gave her shots and scanned her for a chip and to her shock found one in Gracie.