Getting a pet can be a really special and sentimental experience for any pet owner.
Getting a dog, a cat, or any kind of pet is like bringing a new member into your family. Over the years, pets do become family members, and being with them and having them around is a special and important experience for everyone in the house.
Losing pets is something no one wants to think about.
Eventually, pets do pass. As humans often outlive their pets, thinking about life without them can be incredibly hard.
But, even worse is the thought of our pets getting lost or running away. Sometimes, this does happen with pets.
Having a pet run away or losing them is a huge fear of many pet owners.
Whether it’s that they escape from the yard, or they leave the house when the door is open, losing a pet from them being misplaced or running away is a huge fear that many pet owners truly have.
For this reason, many pet owners get their pets microchipped.
Microchipping is a way to keep track of your pets forever. Therefore, if there is a pet that runs away and a rescue organization finds them, they can scan the microchip and the pet owner’s information can be pulled up from a registry.
One Ontario pet owner went through this with her own cat.
Christine De Castro, of Ontario, lost her tabby in the summer of 2010. As any pet owner would feel, De Castro was devastated to realize her tabby cat, Loli, was missing.
When Loli first went missing, De Castro tried looking for her for months.
After failing to find her cat, who was only 2-years-old at the time, she figured that her cat was “gone for good.” But, she was shocked when over 10 years later, she got a call that Loli was found.
She got the call on New Year’s Day.
Vaughan Animal Services called De Castro on New Year’s Day saying that they had Loli in their possession and knew to call her because Loli was microchipped, with her phone number in the system registered. De Castro was obviously shocked.
After being missing for 12 years, Loli was finally home.
The cat is now 14-years-old and De Castro says she is warming up to her at home again. They had been apart for most of the cat’s life, so it is hard to gauge whether or not she truly remembers her owner.
The cat has changed a bit.
“She’s definitely a little bit older, a little grumpier-looking than she looked like when she was a young girl of two. But very much the same cat in every other aspect,” De Castro shared with the news outlet.
And De Castro said slowly they are warming up to each other.
“It’s really hard to say; cats keep their cards close to their chest,” she said. “But she has been very loving with me, so I like to think that it’s slowly coming back to her.”
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For those who are pet owners, this is a great message.
Pet owners who do not have their pets microchipped, this can be a solid message and lesson for everyone. While you may not think it is important, microchipping them can help you in case anything goes wrong.
De Castro says she “moved around” a lot in the last 12 years.
While De Castro had moved around in the last decade, she says that the reason they were able to find her is that she “has the same phone number still.”
So, lesson learned!