Source: ContraCostaTimes.com, April 19, 2009
UPLAND – Julia Clarke said she didn’t believe an Upland animal-control officer when she said they had her dog.”I told her that’s not possible, my dog’s dead,” said Julia Clarke, of her 10-year-old schnauzer Missy. “I thought she had to be, after being gone for 10 months.”
The officer was insistent that the dog belonged to Clarke. Still skeptical, Clarke asked the officer to check the dog’s teeth and reveal to her their condition.
“She told me, `Oh she has terrible teeth,’ that’s when I began to hope,” said Clarke, who resides in Upland with her husband, Bruce. “The last time I had her teeth cleaned, they pulled 14 of them.”
Clarke was at the shelter when it opened and walked down the kennel aisles calling, “Missy, Missy.”
Missy answered back.
“I recognized her bark right away,” Clarke said.
What was hard to recognize was the dog.
Her once immaculately groomed jet black coat was heavily soiled and matted down close to her skin.
If Clarke had any doubt that this loving bundle of bark belonged to her it vanished when she asked the officer, “How did you find me?”
Clarke had forgotten – Missy was microchipped.
“It’s the one sure way your dog can find its way home,” said Jon Knowlton, Upland’s animal services supervisor. “A dog can lose its collar, but it can’t lose the microchip.”
Missy on April 5 was picked up as a stray between Edington and 14th streets in Upland. The first thing animal control does with any found dog is scan for a microchip.”We’re always excited when we find there’s a chip,” Knowlton said. “We do find quite a few animals with chips, but rarely one that’s been away so long. When it happens, it’s fantastic.”
A microchip is about the size of a grain of rice imprinted with a code that matches the owner’s contact information. It is injected underneath the skin between the animal’s shoulder blades.
It was obvious by her appearance Missy wasn’t taken care of by whoever had her, Knowlton said.
“You couldn’t even tell she was a schnauzer,” he said. “That dog was so happy to see her after being gone for so long,” he said. “It was a reunion you just wouldn’t believe.”
Clarke said she couldn’t believe it either.
“We lost her last June,” Clarke said. “I was out gardening in the backyard, and it was so hot I opened the garage door for some breeze.”
Clarke’s husband didn’t know the garage door was open and let Missy out in the backyard.
“Where’s Missy?” Clarke asked her husband when she returned inside. “He told me, `I let her out to be with you.’ I ran outside right away to look for her.”
Clarke figured that Missy had only about a 10-minute head start and raced out to the front yard calling her name.
With no luck, Clarke made signs, headed with the word “reward” in large print and plastered them all over the neighborhood.
She put ads in the paper, checked all the local shelters and stopped those walking their dogs to inquire whether they’d seen Missy.
“Every time we’d go some place in the car, I’d keep a look out to see if I would see her,” she said.
Weeks turned into months.
“I went to the shelters every couple of weeks looking for her, and though there were so many adorable dogs that would make great pets, I wasn’t even tempted,” she said. “This dog couldn’t be replaced.”
Missy was born on Julia Clarke’s birthday – Sept. 11.
“I always liked schnauzers, they’re so friendly and loving,” she said. “And you know what I like best? Something not many other people like. They bark.”
Clarke laughed thinking about all the people who try to get their dogs to stop barking. She likes it when Missy lets her know there’s someone at the door.
In March, after crying buckets of tears, Clarke accepted the reality that Missy wasn’t coming home. To help with closure, she tossed out Missy’s pet bed and papers.
A month later hope, sprang eternal with one unbelievable phone call and a tear-stained reunion – this time happy tears.
“I’m so thankful we have her back,” she said. “We just love her so much.”
