Saturday 17 January 2009

a dog with more than one microchip

This is a story about 'a friend of a friend', but despite that it's not an urban myth. My friend's niece had a Staffy that she loved. She had obtained it from the RSPCA as a four-year-old and had it microchipped when she bought it. A year later, on the recent New Year's Eve, as so often happens, it was frightened by the sound of fireworks and ran away.
That's the bad news.

But it was found and taken to a shelter. That's the good news.

However, a scan at the shelter revealed it had more than one microchip. Bad, because the chip revealed that the dog had been sadly missed by a loving family and was not four, but nine years old.

How could she deny the original owners the joy of this reunion? Even though that family acknowledged my friend's niece had bought the dog in good faith? After much soul-searching, she let it go to the rejoicing family.

It's a sad tale, but it has a nice ending. Now she has bought a lovely little golden retriever puppy to fill the gap in her household.

8 comments:

Noah the Airedale said...

Goodness the dog had been with its original family for a long time. How lucky for them it was given a good home with your friend's niece for the time they thought it was missing.
I'm happy to hear she now has a lovely puppy to love.

tailwags
Noah

Slavenka said...

Parlance , the story is sad but interesting. You can touch a chip very easily when you have a small dogs like mine.

parlance said...

Slavenka, do you mean you can feel it through the skin?

Sometimes when I go to the vet I ask him to check the chip is still between the shoulder blades because I've heard they can move around.

parlance said...

Noah, that was my reaction. My friend said its age was a deciding factor in giving it back - the other family had loved it for so long. I think it's quite a strange story, actually, because you'd think the RSPCA would scan it all over before selling it to a new family.
I have heard one story about a dog having the chip in the tip of its tail, because they move around. My vet said that's probably a true story. As I said to Slavenka, I ask him to scan Penny's chip every few visits, so I know it's still between her shoulders.

I found a lost dog recently and took it to another vet clinic and the girl said there was a chip but she couldn't get the information from it.

All very mysterious to me.

Molly the Airedale said...

OMG, what a super hard decision to make! She did the right thing! How very happy the original family must be!

Love ya lots
Maggie and Mitch

Noah the Airedale said...

Thanks for asking after Colin Harries. I meant to say that he has his own blog now. It's colinharries.blogspot.com Basically it will be about his new life with his pinkies who are soon to become grey nomads, travelling around Australia.

tailwags
Noah

parlance said...

Maggie and Mitch, it was the right decision, as you say, but how hard to make!

parlance said...

Maggie and Mitch, it was the right decision, as you say, but how hard to make!