By now, you’ve likely heard of Muffy, the lost dog who was found a thousand miles from home, nine years after she disappeared. She had somehow migrated from Brisbane, Australia, to Melbourne, where she was reported to the RSPCA as neglected. The society found her in “a squalid backyard”. She had fleas, a matted coat, a bad skin condition – and a microchip implanted under her skin.
Muffy’s story has traveled much further than she ever did – and I don’t think it’s just because summer is a slow news season.
For one thing, many of us have had to deal with lost pets – our own or other people’s. We’ve either searched the neighborhood for a missing dog or cat or found a stray and wondered how we could help it. My family once took in a hungry cat that was hanging around, and it was only when we took him to the vet that we found out he had a tattoo in his ear and an owner who’d been missing him for several months.
The story also gets our attention because Muffy beat the odds. Pets.ca tells us that only about 15% of lost dogs and 2% of lost cats ever get home. (Whether cats lack the tracking skills to find their homes, or just don’t feel like going back, is unclear. I’ve written about prowling the block with catnip in search of a missing cat – he came back when he was good and ready.)
It also raises the question of microchipping pets, a technology that gives them built-in ID. It can reunite you with your lost pet – if the pet makes it to a shelter or clinic.
And that affirms something we already know: We need to report abused and neglected animals. The anonymous caller who told the RSPCA about Muffy shares a lot of the credit for this remarkable story.
