Florida Woman Drives 17 Hours To Reclaim Her Long-Lost Dog

If you’ve ever hesitated for even a moment about microchipping your dog, this story may make you change your tune. This month, the information on a dog’s chip scanned in Fort Wayne, Indiana, led a surrendered pup home to his rightful person… 1000 miles away.

Fort Wayne Animal Care and Control took in Capone after his current owners surrendered him. They had recently relocated to Indiana from Florida.

Fortunately for Capone, the shelter always checks their intakes for microchips. Holly Pasquinelli, community relations and education specialist at FWACC, told WANE:

“Just like we do for all of the animals, we checked for a microchip. Often we find that the microchip goes back to a previous owner or, you know, maybe he was found somewhere and has been rehomed since. So we always do that as a safeguard.”

That essential step turned out to be extremely important for Capone’s future. The microchip showed that he used to belong to a woman currently living in Florida.

A Cross-Country Reunion

FWACC gave this woman the opportunity to claim Capone, and to everyone’s pleasant surprise, she wholly agreed to.

“We said ‘we have your dog. We’re in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He’s at the shelter, and you are the legal owner because your information is linked to the microchip. Would you like to reclaim him or here’s the pathway’.”

The distance this woman drove to reclaim her dog is the furthest anyone has traveled since Pasquinelli has worked at FWACC. She must have been in the car around 17 hours en route to pick up Capone.

Once his previous owner arrived, Capone immediately became excited as he recognized her.

“Before she could even get anything set up in the car he was in the back of the car like, ‘Let’s go!’”

The shelter kindly gave the woman some supplies to make her trip with Capone back to Florida more comfortable. While they can’t release all the information about how Capone changed hands prior to his arrival at FWACC, the shelter emphasized that he’s extremely happy to be back with his mama.

FWACC shared in a comment on Facebook:

“We have a lot of conversations but don’t turn around and disclose every detail on social media. His mama loves him very much and they were very happy to be reunited!”

Microchip Your Dogs!

Time and time again, we learn that microchips can truly reunite parents with missing pets, no matter how far the dog has traveled since. Microchips are easy and inexpensive to get. FWACC, in particular, offers microchipping for just $15.

If your dog does have a microchip and you’re not sure what information is registered to it, you can typically have the chip scanned at any veterinarian’s office or Petco for free. A few dedicated websites such as petmicrochiplookup.org or foundanimals.org can help you identify the company your pet’s microchip was registered with. You can then contact them to make sure the information on the chip is up to date.

You wouldn’t want someone to find your pup only to scan the chip and receive outdated contact information! Check today to see if your dog’s microchip information is current.