LEOPOLD, AN ORANGE TABBY, relaxes on a chair in the home of her owner Sarah Meyer of Orchards. Meyer and her family lost their beloved cat as they moved from Vancouver in 2011, but were able to get him back because he was microchipped.
It’s a story straight out of a Disney movie. A family loses a beloved pet just as they’re ready to move to a new town. They scour high and low to find him, but are unsuccessful. Years pass and his absence is felt by everyone, and then out of nowhere, the phone rings. The pet has been found and returned at last to a very grateful home.
All because of a good samaritan and a microchip.
In 2010, Sarah Meyer was living near Vancouver Mall, reeling from a difficult divorce, when a friend told her she and her family were relocating to Canada and needed a home for their orange tabby cat, Leopold.
“She kept telling me he’d be perfect for me and I kept putting it off, but when I got him, she was right,” Meyer said. “Leopold was the nicest, sweetest cat and became part of our family instantly.”
After regaining some stability in her life, as well as a new boyfriend, Meyer was ready to move to a new house in Orchards, but Leopold up and vanished.
“He was always an outdoor cat and liked to roam everywhere, so I wasn’t worried until a few days went by and he didn’t come back,” said Meyer. “Right up until the time we got in the truck and left for our house, we were looking everywhere for Leopold and didn’t know where he’d gone.”
Meyer and her boyfriend, along with their two sons and daughter canvassed everywhere around the apartment and the mall in the hopes that somebody may have seen him or thought he was a stray.
“It was even a little funny at times because so many of our neighbors knew who Leopold was because he would come visit them and was so approachable and lovable,” said Meyer. “They were all hoping we’d find him, but no one knew where he went.”
Out of time, Meyer and her family finished their move, but her children refused to accept Leopold was gone.
“We’d take regular trips back down to the mall and the neighborhood hoping we’d find him, because we just knew he had to be out there somewhere,” said Meyer. “We just didn’t know where.”
It turned out that Leopold was closer than Meyer could’ve imagined. As a cashier at the Brush Prairie Winco, she sees customers buying pet food every day. Terry Davis was one of those customers and she was buying food for a new visitor who’d begun hanging out more often at her house, an orange tabby cat she’d named “Buddy.”
“I didn’t find him; he really found me,” said Davis. “Buddy was roaming around my pastures because he is quite the hunter, but all I knew was he was my neighbor’s cat. I didn’t know who he actually was or who he belonged to.”
From what Meyer and Davis understand, Davis’ neighbor had worked as a security guard at Vancouver Mall when he spotted Leopold hiding under a bush. Figuring he was a stray, the neighbor brought him to his house and didn’t attempt to find out if he’d had an owner.
“It’s frustrating in hindsight that someone would just up and grab a cat they found without wondering if he belonged to someone,” said Meyer. “If he hadn’t taken Leopold home with him, he probably would’ve come straight home.”
Davis soon became Leopold’s guardian for about the next year, when she discovered he needed to go to the vet.
“He’d developed an abscess on his shoulder, so I took him to Amazia and while they took care of him, I asked that they scan ‘Buddy’ for a chip.”
Meyer couldn’t believe what her friend said when she’d called from Disneyland last month.
“She said the clinic had called her because she was the emergency contact on the chip and they’d found Leopold,” said Meyer. “It was so emotional, we were all crying about it. Even my boyfriend, who never cries about anything like a pet, he was so happy we got him back.”
Sarah Griffith, a Licensed Veterinary Technician with Amazia Veterinary Clinic in Brush Prairie, said it’s standard for clinics and humane societies to scan pets for microchips.
“We always recommend new owners get their pets chipped because it doesn’t hurt the pet, it’s not extremely expensive and it truly can help us find and return them to an owner if they’re lost,” said Griffith. “When we realized what had happened with this kitty, we were all very happy to reunite him with his family.”
Amazia offers chipping for $52, which covers lifetime registration with Avid Pettrac. It’s been three weeks since Leopold has been returned to Meyer and her family and she admits, the shock hasn’t worn off yet.
“We see him walking around and it’s surreal,” said Meyer. “Terry is an angel for taking care of Leopold and getting him back to us. She’s really a part of our family now, but the amazing thing is this all happened because of that microchip.”
Meyer adds she’s confined Leopold to their house for the last month, but with summer coming, she’ll likely get him collared and tagged so her neighbors know who he is.
“We’re all ready for when we get phone calls telling us he’s hanging out in someone’s garage or on their porch or roaming their yard,” Meyer said.
