A skittish dog that ran away from his California home in July was found safe two months later — and roughly 2,000 miles away — thanks to his microchip.
Opie, a 5-year-old corgi shepherd mix, ran off from his home during a storm and disappeared for two months.
While his owner feared the worst, the small pup was making an aimless trek across the country.
On Sept. 28, Opie was miraculously spotted wandering around the outskirts of Chicago — more than 2,000 miles away from his California home — and was turned over to the Itasca Police Department.
When Opie was taken in, his collar bizarrely identified him as a dog with a different name, DuPage County Animal Services Administrator Laura Flamion told the LA Times.
The police officers used a scanner to access Opie’s microchip and had the microchip company contact his owner.
Opie’s owner initially thought she was being pranked.
The entire tale didn’t make much sense to her. She struggled to fathom how her dog could’ve wound up in Illinois, of all places, and wasn’t positive Opie was actually homeward bound until she contacted the police department herself, Flamion told the outlet.
Once she got confirmation, she leapt through every hoop in her path to reach her long-lost pooch. She was on the ground at the DuPage County Animal Services to retrieve her adventurous dog on Oct. 1, just two days after receiving the call about Opie’s discovery.
And now, she’s driving back to California with Opie, watching the familiar sights roll by as he’s finally brought back to his home.
“She wasted no time. I spoke to her and she made it as far as South Dakota; she’s driving back,” Flamion told the outlet.
Opie’s owner originally tracked him to a local gas station in July, but the trail quickly went cold shortly after. Flamion thinks someone took the dog after he bolted during a storm and, somehow, dragged him to Illinois.
Flamion emphasized the importance of keeping microchip information current, especially in cases where a pet might have been stolen, so that the proper owners are contacted first.
In early September, a cat who disappeared from her Florida home over the Fourth of July weekend turned up at a shelter in North Carolina. The cat’s microchip information linked her back to the Florida family.
One elderly dog was returned to his family after being missing for a whopping three years. He was battered, malnourished, and had lost multiple teeth to rot, but was happy to spend the final act of his life back home.
Read the full article here
