The festive season is well underway, and the long dark nights can lead to an increase in missing pets, but registering a microchip is one of the best ways to keep them safe.
Along with it being the law, implanting, registering and regularly updating a microchip can make it easier for vets, rescue shelters and councils to reunite you with your cat or dog, regardless of how they went missing in the first place.
An incredibly unusual illustration of this came when a couple from Utah, USA returned a bit more than they expected to Amazon.
On 10th April 2024, Carrie Clark was horrified to find that her cat Galena had disappeared, and started to search their home and the surrounding area to see if they could be reunited.
A week later, a call came from a vet in Los Angeles, California, to say that their cat had been found and positively identified via microchip.
To provide some illustration of distance, Utah is over 600 miles and three states away, many common routes travel through four states and the two cities are so far apart to be in different time zones. It is almost the length of the UK in terms of distance.
Naturally, Carrie and her husband initially thought it was a joke, but they received confirmation and it quickly became clear what had happened.
After buying a large order of work shoes, the couple returned them to Amazon, but due to Galena’s love of boxes, she hopped in and ended up taking an impromptu trip to California.
Six days later, she was found by Brandy, a warehouse operative for Amazon, who took care of the cat and took her to a vet to be identified.
Outside of slight dehydration, Galena was not harmed by the journey in the box.
This was due to a cocktail of miracles, including the box having a split open for air, the temperatures being not too hot nor cold, the kind fortune of going to the warehouse of an employee who rescues cats as a vocation and the microchip.
