A nervous corgi that ran away during a storm in its Northern California hometown was found 2,000 miles away near Chicago.
Opie from Bieber, California, had an oopsie daisy when he went missing back in July to be found two months later on the other side of the country.
Luckily, he was brought into the warm arms of the people at DuPage County Animal Services in Illinois and found to be microchipped.
DuPage County Animal Services said in a recent Facebook post that their team and the Itasca Police Department scanned for the microchip, “and to everyone’s surprise, it traced back to California!”
Laura Flamion, an administrator at DuPage County Animal Services, told the Los Angeles Times that Opie, a five-year-old corgi shepherd mix, was found on September 28 and turned in to police as a lost pet.
“One phone call later, and the very next day (plus a flight), Opie was back where he belonged- home with his owner,” the shelter’s Facebook post read.
Flamion said Opie’s owner told her she didn’t believe them when she heard the news that her furry friend was found all the way in Illinois. Flamion said the owner “wasted no time” in reuniting with her beloved dog.
The owner believes Opie, who doesn’t like storms, ran away from his home when one rolled through, Flamion said, adding that the owner tracked Opie as far as to a local gas station.
Flamion believes someone took Opie, adding that the dog had a collar with a different name.
“We’ll never know exactly how Opie made his way nearly across the country, but we do know this: microchips work,” DuPage County Animal Services said in its Facebook post. “They make reunions like this possible, no matter how far our four-legged friends may travel.”
Owners can opt to implant a small electronic chip in their dogs, allowing them to be found if they ever get lost.
The American Veterinary Medical Association explained the concept on its website: “The microchip itself does not have a battery—it is activated by a scanner that is passed over the area, and the radio waves put out by the scanner activate the chip. The chip transmits the identification number to the scanner, which displays the number on the screen.”
