Smiles lit up the room in a Michigan animal shelter the second Maggie, a mini Golden Doodle, climbed into owner Jillian Grzegorczyk’s lap. She had vanished without a trace from the family’s backyard 19 months earlier, but thanks to a microchip — which had been registered with AKC Reunite’s database — the pup was coming home.
“It was surreal,” Grzegorczyk tells AKC of the moment she saw Maggie again. “I was in disbelief that it was really her, but she recognized us after she got close and smelled us. Now, it’s like she never left.” The Saginaw County Animal Care and Control Center, where Maggie was dropped off on April 2, posted a video of the happy reunion on Facebook.
Today was a very special day for little Maggie and her family. After going missing from their backyard 19 LONG months ago, Maggie was found as a stray by a Good Samaritan who turned her over to SCACC. Staff scanned her for a chip and found one! Watch Maggie as she greets her family after over a year of separation. Microchips work!
Posted by Saginaw County Animal Care & Control on Thursday, April 5, 2018
Maggie was the family’s “Christmas puppy.” They got her on Dec. 23, 2013, the same day Grzegorczyk’s father died. “My then five-year-old daughter wrote a letter to Santa asking for a puppy, and Maggie was just what we needed to get through such a difficult time. She helped us through a major loss,” Grzegorczyk explains. Though the family had an electric fence on their property, Maggie disappeared one day in 2016 after she was let out to relieve herself. They’re still unsure whether she escaped or if she was taken from the yard.
Nearly two years later, a couple found her wandering outside over the March 31st weekend in Saginaw, Mich., about 25 minutes from the Grzegorczyk home.
Grzegorczyk says that without the microchip, which had been implanted between Maggie’s shoulder blades during a previous trip to the vet, the shelter wouldn’t have known to reach out to her family. Because Maggie’s microchip ID number had been enrolled in AKC Reunite, the shelter was able to scan it and obtain Grzegorczyk’s contact information.
AKC Reunite has reunited over 500,000 families with their pets since its founding in 1995. “Reunions like this happen frequently and are only possible because of a microchip that is registered with up to date information,” President and CEO Tom Sharp shares. “At AKC Reunite, we are so fortunate to be able to help pets like Maggie return to their families every day.” (Visit AKC Reunite to enroll your pet’s microchip ID number.)
Grzegorczyk concludes, “It’s so good to have Maggie home and see how happy she makes my six children.”
For more information about AKC Reunite and its services, visit akcreunite.org. And for families interested in enrolling All-American Dogs with AKC, check out our Canine Partners program.