Missing dog reunited with owner after seven years
The stray, picked up by the SPCA, was saved by her microchip and is once again in her loving owner’s home.
Zoey, a black Labrador that went missing in 2017, has been reunited with her owner and is happily back home with her family.
Emma Visser said that she was still in shock, as she had made peace with never seeing Zoey again.
Zoey’s disappearance in 2017 left Visser devastated, unsure if Zoey had been stolen or had simply escaped.
“For seven years, there was absolutely nothing. I even stopped thinking about her,” Visser told Rekord.
She was living in Valhalla at the time Zoey went missing.
Tshwane SPCA Centurion received a very scared black Labrador on January 17, who growled at staff when approached.
It took six days before staff were able to get close enough to check for a microchip, and were surprised when they found a match to a missing dog.
Finally, on Wednesday, January 24, Visser got the surprise call.
“The SPCA told me that she wouldn’t allow anyone to come close to her, she was growling and barking,” said Visser.
“When I got there she came and sat between my legs immediately, and it’s been whining and following me ever since.
She is my shadow.”
Visser said that her first reaction was disbelief and that she has still not recovered from the shock.
“When I got home, I was shaking and crying. I still can’t believe it, when I am at work I constantly think about if she is still home, if she is safe.
It is all still new to her. She has been fine with the other dogs, she has been fine with the cat. We went for a walk yesterday, I gave her a nice bath.”
Visser said that her heart breaks every time she has to leave Zoey.
“When she sees me, she just starts whining. She probably thinks I’m going to leave her again,” she said.
Visser said that she never expected that the microchip would work.
“I’ve always had my pets microchipped, and I have read stories about pets being reunited with their families, but I never thought it would be me,” she said.
“One of my previous cats went missing. I got tracker dogs, spending thousands on searching, and we found nothing. So this was the last thing I expected.”
Tshwane SPCA Centurion urge pet owners to get their pets chipped
Guenevere Mynhardt, Tshwane SPCA Centurion operations manager, said that the staff were just as shocked to find out Zoey had been missing for so long.
“When [Visser] got here we asked to see a picture as proof of ownership of the dog, she only had pictures of Zoey as a puppy.
That’s where we heard she last saw her dog seven years ago.
The whole SPCA was shocked,” said Mynhardt.
“This story and situation made me love my job all over again. It was worth trying everything humanly possible to gain a dog’s trust for this miracle to happen.”
Mynhardt urged all pet owners to get their pets microchipped.
The SPCA gets many animals every day, with many strays turning out to belong to loving families once they can be located through their microchips.
She said that dog collars can easily be lost or taken off.
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