EVERETT – Only Griffey knows where he’s been the last six years, and he isn’t really talking.
The good-natured, chocolate-colored pit bull mix disappeared in 1998, when he was still a puppy, from his yard in Arlington. He turned up last weekend – happy, healthy and well-fed – wandering in the Machias area.
Everett Animal Control officers took him in and, as with all roaming pets, they checked for ID. When they waved a microchip-reading wand over Grifffey’s shoulders, it pulled up a 12-digit ID number that gave his name and his owners’ contact information.
When Terry Sawyer answered the phone Monday morning, she got a shock.
“Oh my God, you have Griffey?”
Sawyer’s heart pounded and her eyes filled with tears.
“After six months or a year, you kind of give up,” Sawyer said. “It’s so amazing that he came back to us.”
Everett Animal Shelter director Bud Wessman, who describes Griffey as “calm, cool and collected,” said it’s rare that dogs are returned to their owners after being gone so long.
About 30 percent of dogs that land at the shelter are returned to their owners, and only 2 percent of cats ever make it home.
The pets that do make it back to their families are the ones with clear return labels – licenses or microchip IDs.
Wessman said inserting a microchip the size of a grain of rice under the loose skin between a dog or a cat’s shoulders practically guarantees them a ticket home.
The process is painless and saves pet owners heartache, taxpayers dollars and city workers time, he said.
“Collars can be removed,” Wessman said. “In the case of Griffey, he was also licensed, but the microchip stayed there and was active for six years.”
Griffey was stolen the first time when he was a few months old. When the Sawyers tracked him down, they got him a microchip.
When he disappeared a second time, they were sure the microchip would eventually bring him home. But weeks turned to months, and the family eventually moved to Marysville. They welcomed three other pets into their home – Tawni the dachshund, Lucky the Labrador and Olivia the cat.
“Your life changes a lot in six years,” Sawyer said. “We’ve got a full house.”
She has mixed feelings about adding a fourth pet to the family, though her husband, Chris, and daughter Alex, 19, are all for it.
“We’re kind of going on the destiny card here. He came back to us after that long? This may end up being a six-member family.”
Reporter Jennifer Warnick: 425-339-3429 or jwarnick@heraldnet.com.
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