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On Dec. 18, 2022, Winchester resident Etta Pettijohn was walking in the Winchester City Park when she came upon an emaciated cat that was close to death.

“I was stunned at the sight of the skeletal figure, thinking it was dead, until I saw slight movement,” Pettijohn said. “I have pets and often wonder what would happen to them should they be lost or stolen. I’m afraid they’ll end up feral and starved, a victim of cruelty, or confined to a cage in an animal shelter until euthanized.”

Pettijohn took the female cat home to care for it until she could figure out what to do. A storm was predicted to drop temperatures into single digits a few days later, and the weak cat needed immediate care.

A few weeks later, the cat she called Lucky was up and walking, purring and rubbing against Pettijohn’s leg.

Pettijohn could tell this was someone’s pet.

“She was very loving and not afraid of my dog,” Pettijohn said. “She also used a litter box, so it obviously wasn’t a feral.”

Pettijohn realized the cat was old as she had some vision problems.

“She was also having urinary problems, common in older cats, which can be expensive to treat,” she said. “I knew I couldn’t afford another pet, but I kept wondering what I would want to happen if this was my pet.”

Pettijohn contacted Animal Harbor, a Winchester nonprofit organization that provides healthcare and temporary shelter for lost and homeless companion animals. The organization adopts as many pets as possible out, but also provides permanent homes for unadoptable ones.

In addition to medical care, Animal Harbor microchips and spays or neuters the animals they adopt out to the public.   

“I worried that I needed to get Lucky veterinarian care because she might be suffering from kidney failure,” Pettijohn said. “Because of urinary problems, I confined her to my bathroom, but as she grew stronger, she wanted out.

Pettijohn was really torn and was telling a friend on the telephone that she should probably just take her to a vet to be euthanized to prevent suffering from the ailment. But she couldn’t get it out of her head that this was someone’s family pet and she just couldn’t do it.

“It was heart-wrenching to me to think about having saved this girl’s life – and that I might have to end it,” she said.

As she was speaking on the phone, she saw two emerald eyes staring intently at her through the bathroom door, as if pleading, “Please don’t give up on me!”

The next day, Animal Harbor staff scanned the cat and discovered a microchip, placed in the cat 19 years earlier in Florida, when she was named Holly.

The chip information had been updated in Las Cruces, New Mexico years later, but the cat’s name was Pearl by this time.

The staff then contacted the person listed as the cat’s owner who now lived in Winchester, not far from where Lucky was found.

The owner told rescuers he had gotten “Pearl” from an animal shelter in Mount Juliet in 2014 and that he traveled with his job and his beloved cat moved with him. He explained that he and a friend were moving furniture several weeks ago when Pearl, a lifelong indoor pet, slipped out the door without their knowing.

Her front paws were declawed. That, and her age, made it very difficult for her to survive outside.

“Which of your nine lives are you on now?” Pearl’s owner quipped when he picked her up to take her home.

“Seems Holly, who later became Pearl, had spent her lifetime earning the name Lucky,” Pettijohn said. “She was lucky to be alive this time for sure, but what allowed her to be returned to her owner was not luck. It was the foresight to have her microchipped and keep the owner information up to date.”

About microchipping

The microchip, the size of a grain of rice, is a radio-frequency identification transponder injected beneath the skin between the shoulder blades of an animal. It carries a unique identification number which can be scanned by a vet or shelter.

The unique identifier in the chip won’t do any good unless it is registered with a national pet-recovery database. Pet owners will need to use a recovery service that has access to different microchip databases and technology. Veterinarians can provide an up-to-date list of registries.

“Luckily for Pearl, her owner, who traveled extensively, kept the contact information updated,” Pettijohn said.

Hope for a homecoming

According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, a study of more than 7,700 stray animals at shelters in 23 states showed microchipped dogs were returned to owners at more than double the overall rate for all stray dogs (both microchipped and not microchipped.) For stray cats, the difference in return rates was even more dramatic.

For microchipped animals not returned to their owners, the most common reason was an incorrect or disconnected owner telephone number in the microchip-registry database.

Just last month, a bloodhound was returned to a family in Tennessee after being found in hazardous, filthy conditions in a puppy mill in New Jersey. Another dog, a collie that had been microchipped and was missing for months, was also found at the puppy mill and returned to its owner.

For information about microchipping a pet, contact a local veterinarian. For information about Animal Harbor, visit animalharbor.org.