Sunday, May 24, 2009

SaI, a shaggy dog


Another microchip story, and there are never too many of them. Here's a case where there person moved after having lost her dog and she actually remembered to update the contact information with the microchip registry. But she still didn't believe it when a shelter called to tell her they had her dog -- it was so long after the disappearance. And to think that all the dog did initially was run after a cat! Enjoy the story.


Lost dog reunited with owner 14 months after taking off after cat, CA
The Sentinal, By Isaiah Guzman – Sentinel correspondent
October 17, 2008

More than a year had passed since Cheryl Chaudhary’s dog Sai took off after a cat in Watsonville and never came back.

It was a traumatic experience, Chaudhary said, like losing a child. She had, after all, helped birth the Jack Russell terrier herself.

Chaudhary looked for months, blanketed the town with fliers, gotten handfuls of false leads and eventually stopped the hunt.

Last Friday, however, thanks to a microchip the size of a grain of rice, Chaudhary and Sai were brought back together in the kind of reunion even the most seasoned animal services workers don’t get sick of.

“She honestly didn’t believe us when we called and it wasn’t until she came into the shelter on Friday that she believed us,” Tricia Geisreiter of Santa Cruz County Animal Services said. “She saw the dog, burst into tears, collapsed on the floor and the dog started whining.”

Animal control officers caught Sai after setting up humane dog traps off of Atkinson Lane in Watsonville. They had been alerted by citizens that two dogs had been seen loose in the area together, one friendly, one aggressive. The friendly one turned out to be Sai.

The dogs were taken to the shelter and scanned for microchips. Sai’s information came up and Chaudhary, who has since moved from Watsonville to Capitola, was contacted.

“I was having dreams of him and I hadn’t dreamt of him in a really long time,”

Chaudhary said. “Like two nights before (I got him back), I could hear him crying. And I’m not a religious person, but I prayed I’d get him back. I honestly believe that I was hearing him wherever he was.” Sai hasn’t been the same, Chaudhary said, but owner and dog are adjusting. He still jumps up on the bed to sleep with her, but barks less than he used to and does a lot more laying around.

“He’s just really quiet but I take him to his favorite beach twice a week and he cheers up,” she said. “He was loose on the greenbelt in Watsonville. Who knows what happened to him.”

Because of the microchip, Chaudhary said she never gave up hope. And that’s the only reason she got Sai back, said Geisreiter. Sai had a collar but no tags when he was found. The device costs $15 including a registration fee and is easily injected under the skin with a syringe.

“A lot of people question us, ‘Do you really scan every animal that comes in?’” Geisreiter said. “And the answer is yes we do.”

Said Chaudhary: “I never truly gave up hope 100 percent because of the microchip.”

Source:
http://www.blogcatalog.com/blog/aschaes-dogblog/370fba0add9ad49682c5c4b8f4dda15f

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