A German Shepherd has been returned to its owners just over a year after it went missing in Dublin.
Family pet Elsa disappeared from her home in Ballyfermot at the beginning of 2017. She was found in a car park in Cabra earlier this month by two women who wrapped her in a woollen jumper and brought her to the Dogs Trust in Finglas.
Staff at the centre discovered Elsa was chipped, with contact details for her owner recorded. The Dogs Trust said Elsa’s owner Megan “immediately began to cry” when she heard the dog had been found and said she had never stopped looking for her.
Megan, her partner and two children have since been reunited with their beloved pet.
Sarah Lynch, campaigns manager at Dogs Trust Ireland, said: “We are delighted for Megan and her family and extremely grateful to Elsa’s finders who kept her safe and brought her in to be scanned for a microchip.”
“Microchipping your dog and having your up to date details registered against the chip is compulsory by law in Ireland since April 2016,” Ms Lynch said.
“But sadly we see all too often stray dogs arriving into rescue centres and dog pounds across the country either without a microchip or with incorrect details recorded against the chip they have, which makes reuniting them with their owner a sometimes impossible task.”
Ms Lynch said the Dogs Trust wants “to ensure that all lost dogs can be returned safely to their home where they belong, which is why we run annual microchipping campaigns across Ireland to encourage more people to microchip their dog and keep their most up to date contact details recorded against it”.
Last year 1,982 dogs were microchipped by Dogs Trust as part of their national neutering campaigns.
