PetKnows

Dixie the cat has made international headlines recently after she was reunited with her family after being lost for nine years!  MSNBC reports that the 15-year-old cat disappeared from her home in 1999 and, “was found less than half a mile from her home in Birmingham after a concerned resident rang the animal charity to report a thin and disheveled cat who had been in the area for a couple of months.”

Dixie’s remarkable story wouldn’t be possible without the microchip that she had which identified her and led her back to her family.  I wasn’t very familiar with this but after some research I found that the microchipping procedure is being performed more and more often as a form of identification similar to license tags and tattoos.  But while those can be lost or altered, the microchip is completely permanent.  It’s a great tool, as Dixie proved, for lost or stolen animals since the majority of veterinarians, shelters and humane societies have scanners that can read the digital number on the chip.  Once the number is read, the microchip company will have the pet’s information and they can quickly be returned to their home safe and sound.  If you’d like more information or are interested in the common questions on the microchips - take a look at the Humane Society website and About.com for more details.

And it was a happy ending for Dixie and her family as her owners said, “We don’t think she has stopped purring since she came back through the door.”