I recieved a call to collect a stray in Milton Keynes. The finder said the dog was wandering around in the bushes in front of his house. I took possession of him and scanned him as I put him in the van. As I wrote the numbers down due to the heavy rain I missed a digit. So I re scanned him. A totally different set of numbers came up.
I believed my machine had broken due to the heavy rain. I re scanned again and got the original numbers. It appeared “Fluffy” had in fact two chips. I called it in and said I want to go with the chip that’s the eldest as I had my doubts regarding the legitimacy of a second chip.
The office called me back saying that the dog was registered to Milton Keynes but the other chip was same dogs name age etc but an address in Durham. She said she had a man in tears on the phone at the news!
I drove to the owners house and as I opened the door “fluffy” recognised the area. His tail started to wag.
As we walked from the van the owner approach us he was understandably very emotional. His dog had been missing nearly 4 years and he said he had almost lost hope of ever seeing “the little fella” again.
To the original (real ) owners credit he had already paid the office the release fee ( I hope he gets this back)
A few things I have learned here.
1. NEVER give up hope
2. From now on in I will double scan every dog that I am called out to collect.
3. How vital a chip is
4. Who inserted a 2nd chip without scanning “Fluffy” for a chip prior to inserting in their chip?
Between me the office and a local RSPCA contact we have a very good idea where he had been living since his lost/theft.
If it hadn’t been for the rain obscuring the screen poor “fluffy” may never have found his way home.
My best day so far.
Graham
This is one of the reasons we have our campaign for Compulsory Microchip Scanning!!
