MURRAY, Utah — It was late Sunday night when Andrea Bangerter and Gabby Davis came home to find their dog Lola missing.
“She's a really sweet yellow lab,” said Davis. “We just searched everywhere. We couldn’t find her, so immediately the panic sets in.”
Lola had been wearing a scarf and a cone, which the family found discarded on the sidewalk. The mother and daughter checked their doorbell footage and could see a woman walking westbound with Lola around 4 p.m.
“The lady that had Lola, you know, Lola spent some time with her, and then the lady went to the bus stop and handed her off to a stranger, another stranger, and said ‘I took her cone off’ and ‘If you could find a place for her and find where she belongs,’” said Bangerter.
The next day, Bangerter got a call from the Petco in Draper: they had Lola.
“Without the microchip, I don't know that we would have been able to get her back as quickly,” said Davis.
Even after posting on multiple social media platforms, putting up fliers and searching on foot with neighbors, ultimately, the speedy reunion was thanks to Lola having a microchip.
“It really was a Christmas miracle for us to be able to get her back,” said Bangerter. “We were feeling pretty hopeless and helpless.”
With the holidays approaching, it’s a good idea to get your dog microchipped if they aren’t already, said Dr. Corinna Camfield, the medical director at Hillside Veterinary Hospital.
“I can't tell you the number of dogs that come in that are lost and, you know, their collar fell off so they don't have tags or anything like that, and we can reunite them with their family, and really quickly, without them having to go to the shelter,” she said. “New Year's Day and July 5th and the day after Pioneer Day is usually the day where the most dogs get reported missing because they just get so scared. They bolt out the door, even dogs who haven't had an issue before, and so having them microchipped means that they can get back to you.”
