Microchip success story

This story has been in the news this weekend. A dog who was stolen from San Diego family over a year ago was found in Seattle and reunited with her family! Avid paid for her plane ticket home.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniont...1n6dharma.html

Dog reunited with S.D. family after being found near Seattle
By Jeanette Steele
STAFF WRITER
July 6, 2004
Dharma the dog is one lucky mutt. Or maybe it was karma.
There's no other explanation for how the 3-year-old black Labrador mix survived a 1,200-mile journey from her San Diego back yard to a Seattle suburb.
The dog is again crunching kibble in her Allied Gardens home after disappearing 15 months ago.
The happy reunion came after a mother and her teenage daughter picked up the pooch in Federal Way, Wash., last month. The dog was dragging a leash, no owner in sight. It looked bad and smelled worse.
A scan of the microchip embedded in Dharma's neck revealed her owner to be Peggy Russell-Seymour, a San Diego nurse and paralegal.
"I was stunned, because it had been so long and she was so far away," said Russell-Seymour, who collected Dharma Friday after she flew home in the cargo hold of an Alaska Airlines plane.
"She knew us right away. It was like she was so happy to be home," she said. "She has stuck very close to us the last couple days. She doesn't want to be left alone, even from one room to another."
Russell-Seymour and her family searched for the Lab-Samoyed mix after discovering the padlock on their backyard gate cut and the dog absent in April 2003. But fliers and frequent trips to animal shelters didn't pan out.
The family figured they'd never see her again.
But Dharma clearly was destined to return.
No one knows where or how the dog spent the past 15 months, but Karen DePew spotted Dharma wandering around her Seattle suburb near midnight last month. She said it looked like a dog in search of an owner.
Worried, DePew pulled over. Dharma hopped into the back seat of DePew's car as if she was family.
The match took. The dog wouldn't leave the DePew home, even though they kept her unchained in the front yard. Dharma escorted 15-year-old Lauren to the school bus stop each morning, watched her board, then returned to the family's house.
"I said: 'It's such a nice dog. Maybe we might keep it,' " Karen DePew said. They took her to a veterinarian to check a rash and fleas. The vet, she said, somehow overlooked the microchip.
But before calling the dog hers, DePew took the pooch to the King County animal shelter in case someone was missing the shaggy black dog with no tags.
Someone was. Shelter staffers found the chip, which led them to Allied Gardens.
"I'm happy it found its home," DePew said yesterday.
For Dharma's return, the King County shelter bathed and groomed her, took her to the vet and drove her to the airport. The microchip company paid the $300 in traveling expenses, Russell-Seymour said.
Dharma's family is still puzzled by how the pooch traveled so far.
"It could have been anything," Russell-Seymour said. "I wish she could talk and tell me."