Cat comes home after 2 years, thanks to microchip

Ozzie the bengal cat was reunited with his family, after 2 years, thanks to a cat microchip.

I read this story earlier this year, and thought of it again after reading about cat microchips over at Michael's place.

Selected quotes below are from this newpaper story
Cat Ozzie's back from Millport after two years

"A MISSING moggie has been reunited with its Bearsden owners — after turning up in Millport TWO YEARS after it vanished. Karen Ratcliffe was stunned when she was told her beloved pet had been found safe and well, 38 miles away in the seaside town last week."

Here's the map of the 38 miles- A is Bearsden, B is Millport:

"She has no idea how the Bengal tabby managed to cross the waves to the Isle of Cumbrae — but she and her family are delighted to welcome him home. Ozzie was handed into North Ayrshire Cats Protection by a woman who had noticed that he was a stray and they found that he had a microchip which enabled them to trace his original owner.

"Karen said: "I got Ozzie and his sister, Ellie, after my husband died to comfort the children a little bit. He was the dominant male so he'd often go out and one day he just never came home.

"The children were devastated when he went missing, they made laminated posters and put them all over the area. We phoned the local police station and we were all out looking for him, checking garages and rattling cans of food.

"Getting a call two years later to say he'd been found was incredible, I couldn't believe it. We had all given up hope of finding him safe and well."

A volunteer at North Ayrshire Cats Protection, said: "We got a real shock when we discovered that Ozzie came from Bearsden. It wasn't so much the distance but the fact that he had to cross the water. It was great to be able to return him to his rightful owner. The vast majority of cats aren't microchipped so they just have to be re-homed, this shows how effective the chip is in returning lost cats."

When I adopted Tootsie from a rescue center, she already had an implanted microchip. She's a totally indoor cat, and apparently has always been such, but the rescue center has cats "microchipped" as a matter of policy. Tootsie is usually pretty easy to locate. My keys, tho, well that's a different matter altogether!