Española dog, family reunite after 9 months thanks to microchip
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ESPAÑOLA, N.M. — What started as a normal October day for one Española family and their dog, Midnight, turned frantic.
“We let him out there for a couple of hours or so. When we went back out to get him, that’s when we couldn’t find him. He was gone,” said Dominique, one of Midnight’s owners.
Dominique put up posters and Facebook posts but heard nothing for months.
Then, last Tuesday, Phoenix, Arizona resident Cheryl Carlson saw a little black dog while driving to see a friend. She stopped and got a quick response.
“He came running right up to me and jumped up on my leg and was all happy to see me. So I walked him over to the car and said, ‘You wanna get in the car?’ And he jumped right in the car and, um, I took him home,” said Cheryl Carlson.
An Española family was out of hope after losing their dog last October – until a discovery last Tuesday in Arizona changed everything.
It was there that Carlson started looking for the dog’s owner.
“He didn’t have any collar or any tags like that, so I had to see if he had a chip, and PetSmart said, ‘Yes, he did have a chip.’ But the chip had no name attached to it,” said Carlson.
Eventually, it traced back to Española Humane.
“Midnight happened to get neutered at our clinic. So, we microchipped him and that’s how the microchip company was able to trace it back to our shelter,” said Mattie Allen with Española Humane.
Carlson reached out to them. As fate would have it, someone from Española Humane was already heading to Phoenix and picked up Midnight.
Allen called Dominique and she couldn’t wait. Dominique reunited with her 14-month-old pup at around the right time – midnight Tuesday into Wednesday.
“Midnight just came flying out of his deep sleep because he could hear her car coming. He was jumping in the air and doing 360s and wagging his tail and that’s how Maria knew it was the right car that pulled in,” Allen said.
A Midnight reunion thanks to a microchip.
“The important thing about microchips is to keep your contact information up-to-date. We can’t find you if your contact information isn’t up-to-date. Please keep your phone number and your address and your email up-to-date on those chips,” said Allen.