There are two happy dogs that are wagging their tails after being reunited with their owners
On Wednesday, PALS Rescue Inc. shelter manager Courtney Holder was able to reconnected a lost dog with his owner after being gone from home for a month and a half.
Mator, a chocolate lab, was found after a couple from Port Gibson saw him wandering the streets of Wilkinson County. The couple picked him up and took him to PALS on Tuesday, where the search for his family began.
Holder said she located a microchip and searched for a day and half for Mator’s family.
“When Mator came in, we knew he had to belong to someone. Although skinny from who knows how long on the road, he is a very loving dog,” Holder said. “I called around to several vets to see if they had the microchip in their system. I was able to find out the microchip was made by 24 Hour Pets and through that, we tried to track down the owner.”
Holder said they found out Mator was from Zachary, La., and there were numbers listed. However, none of the numbers worked.
“We were able to reach out to some kind people and animal lovers alike at the Zachary Police Department,” she said. Holder said officers were able to look up an address for Mator’s owner, Charles Laird, but it was an old address.
“On a whim, I asked my mother-in-law because I knew he was from Natchez,” Holder said. “I figured she might know someone, that knew someone.”
It turns out, her mother-in-law knew someone who knew Laird.
“One of her friends said they had a friend that lived in Zachary who’s dog had been missing for a month, turns out it was the same dog. What are the odds?” Holder said.
Holder said PALS was able to reunite Mator with Laird.
“Both of them couldn’t have been more excited,” she said. “No one knows how Mator ended up where he did. It was by the grace of God and some wonderful animal loving friends that we were able to reconnect this owner and his companion. It not for that tiny microchip, we would have never been able to make that connection. This is another happy tails ending that I’m glad we could take part in.”
Then, on Thursday, a 14-year-old chihuahua named CoCo was reunited with his owners, Felicia and Quinn Sambo after being found by a Magnolia couple on Tuesday.
“He wandered to a lady’s home in Magnolia and she took him to Dr. Tamor to have him checked out because he had lost some hair and was skinny,” she said.
Holder said Dr. Tamor told the couple that CoCo was healthy and suggested taking CoCo to PALS.
“We were able to take him in,” Holder said.
She said the Sambos came to PALS Thursday with a lost dog poster in hopes of being reunited with their dog.
“I looked at the poster and told them ‘I think we have that dog here,’” she said.
Sure enough, he was at PALS.
“Turns out, their house had burned down and Coco had gotten confused and lost,” Holder said. “We learned CoCo is 14 years old and had been missing for two weeks.
“CoCo could not be happier to be reunited with his family and they couldn’t be happier that their companion of 14 years was able to come home safe.”
Holder said she would recommend pet owner’s placing a microchip in their pets.
“I tell them during adoption, it’s optional but a way of locating their pet if they’re lost and they show up at a vet clinic or a shelter, the chip can be scanned,” she said. “It’ll have the owner’s phone number, last known address and any other information. It’s an extra form of identification.”
And in Mator’s case, that extra form of identification helped located his owners.
“It’s been a really good couple of weeks here at PALS (reuniting) these pets with their owners and I hope it’s something that we can continue to do,” she said.
