HARFORD COUNTY, Md. — They care for animals when their owners can no longer do so, but workers at the Humane Society of Harford County also help people beat the odds in finding their lost pets.
WATCH: Harford County cat reunited with family after 5 years thanks to microchip
“This is Dakota,” said Terrie Poling of Joppa as she walked out of the shelter after picking up her dog.
“She just ran off, because we’re doing construction at the house and something scared her, and I’m so thankful that someone picked her up and brought her here.”
Dakota was only missing for about 20 minutes.
The case of Artemis, a domestic short-haired brown tabby that recently showed up in someone’s unfinished basement in Bel Air, is a different story.
“As part of our normal intake process, we scan all the pets for a microchip, and low and behold, the cat had a chip,” said Erin Long of the Humane Society of Harford County.
“So we traced it. We called the owner. Again, pretty routine, and she started to cry, and she said, ‘I can’t believe this is happening. My cat has been gone for five years.’”
Melissa Garci and her daughter, Brooke, had long since moved from Harford to Cecil County, and when their initial efforts to post flyers and search for Artemis came up short, they gave up hope of ever seeing her again.
“Everybody at the shelter was like shocked and wanted to meet her, like the workers, and they brought her to a cat room like where you meet new cats,” Brooke recalled, “and she, like, immediately came out slowly, and I was like, ‘Oh, hi!’ like as if I didn’t know if she would know us.”
“She said, ‘I wonder if Artemis is going to remember me?’ and I said, ‘Well, maybe not your face, but maybe your smell,'" said Long.
“But Artemis came right out of his carrier, went right up to her and her daughter, got in her lap, and there was not a dry eye. I mean there were tears all around.”
In all probability, Artemis may never have made it home if not for his microchip, which is a tiny electronic transponder about the size of a grain of rice, implanted painlessly under the surface of the skin.
Depending upon the study, it’s estimated about half of all chipped dogs will be reunited with their owners and about two out of every five lost cats, and there’s another important step to better your odds.
“It’s not enough just to get them microchipped,” said Long.
“You want to make sure your chip is always registered correctly so if you move, you want to call the microchip company and you want to update your address. If you get a new phone number, call that microchip company, because it doesn’t do anybody any good if we go to trace the chip and the phone number is not in service anymore.”
Just ask Melissa and Brooke Garci, whose phone number provided the only clue in returning Artemis to her rightful home.
“She said, ‘This is the Humane Society. We have Artemis.”
“And we were like, ‘What??!!!”
“We were freaking out, because it had been almost five years since she’d been gone.”
