Thanks to a microchip ID and an alert motorcyclist, a hospital blood-donor dog who had been missing for more than a year was reunited with his owner earlier this week.
Roy, a border collie, was found on Monday in Pingtung County’s Chaojhou Township (潮州), more than 100km from where he used to live in Chiayi County.
The dog’s owner, Wu Guan-luen (吳冠倫), a former resident doctor at National Chiayi University Animal Hospital, said he had spent a lot of effort to find Roy, putting up notices and offering a reward of NT$10,000 via social media, newspaper ads and flyers.
Photo: By Hsu Hsueh-lan, Taipei Times
Wu said Roy went missing at the university’s campus on Jan. 5 last year, and for the past one-and-a-half years he had no news of the border collie.
Then on Monday, he received a phone call from a man in Pingtung County.
The man, surnamed Pan (潘), from Chaojhou, said he had stopped his motorcycle at a red light when he saw a dog barking at him. He said he gave Roy a good look, and then, to his surprise, the dog jumped on the foot pad of his motorcycle.
Pan took the dog to the local animal hospital for a checkup and the veterinarian found that Roy had an implanted microchip ID. After the information was scanned, they contacted Wu.
Pan refused to accept the reward of NT$10,000.
Roy was reunited with Wu at the university’s animal hospital on Wednesday. He was very happy, wagging his tail and rolling around on the floor.
“The microchip ID was a big help in getting Roy back,” Wu said.
Wu said the five-year-old collie used to be a stray. Found in 2009, the dog was taken to the animal hospital for treatment by workers at a local shelter.
Wu, the veterinarian on duty at the time, said the border collie was friendly, intelligent and very good at listening to commands, so he decided to keep him as a pet.
“Roy’s blood type is a common one. He is very suitable for blood-type matching for dogs. Whenever we get a serious canine injury or one with autoimmune hemolytic problems, Roy is volunteered as the blood-donor dog,” Wu said.
“In his two years of work, Roy has donated more than 1,000cc of blood, saving seven injured or sick dogs,” Wu added.
“Roy is now undergoing a health checkup at the university’s animal hospital. After verifying that he is OK, Roy will return to work as a blood donar,” Wu said.
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