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Microchip helps woman reunite with missing cat after 4 years

Black cat
Reunited: File photo. A South Carolina woman was reunited with her cat, who had been missing for four years. (Bob D'Angelo/Cox Media Group)
(Bob D'Angelo/Cox Media Group)

BLUFFTON, S.C. — A South Carolina woman and her cat were reunited after four years, thanks to a microchip.

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Linda Burton, of Bluffton, said that Oliver, her 14-year-old male cat, went missing in April 2020 after she was hospitalized with COVID-19, WJCL-TV reported.

“I was sick in the hospital and I came home after four days, and Oliver was missing,” Burton told the television station.

After searching for several months, Burton said she gave up.

“I honestly didn’t think he could survive four years,” she told WJCL. “I didn’t think he could survive an hour.”

So, Burton was stunned when she received a text last month from the Hilton Head Humane Association, stating that Oliver had been brought to the local shelter

“I just about fainted because I couldn’t believe that he was found,” Burton told WJCL.

Oliver had been microchipped, so the shelter was able to easily find Burton.

“She was ecstatic,” Shelly Anchondo, Okatie Campus Manager of the Hilton Head Humane Association told the television station. “Like she was immediately ready to hop in her car and come get him. She was in tears. So was our front office staff.”

“I am over the moon,” Burton wrote in an Instagram post.

“Please microchip your pets because there’s no way I would have gotten reunited with Oliver if he wasn’t microchipped and it’s just a small thing that you have to do and it can make such a big difference,” Burton told WJCL.

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