Houston Family Reunited with Dog that Went Missing Nearly 2 Years Ago – PEOPLE

Tommy McArdle is a digital news writer at PEOPLE covering stories across all of the brand's verticals. Prior to joining PEOPLE, Tommy covered the entertainment industry at Looper and sports at The Sporting News and Boston.com. He graduated from Emerson College in 2019.
A family in Houston reunited with their pet dog who went missing nearly two years ago after the Houston SPCA found the canine and his microchip.
On Sept. 9, the Houston SPCA shared a video on Facebook of Cash, a black-and-white boxer dog, reuniting with his owners. The day before, the SPCA said in a press release that it found the dog lost and emaciated with an injured back leg in northeast Houston and brought the canine to the city’s Animal Medical Center.
Once Cash was safe, a veterinarian found a microchip registered to his owner, Jessica Ochoa, who told the SPCA Cash went missing from their yard roughly a year and a half ago, the SPCA said in its release.
"WELCOME HOME CASH! After almost two years away from his family, this boxer is home again. Our injured animal rescue ambulance picked him up with a leg injury, and when we discovered he had a microchip, we called his family right away!" the Houston SPCA wrote on Facebook. "Now, he's happy to be going home for some much-needed TLC."
"We scan every pet that enters our care for a microchip and contact the number on the account," the organization added on Facebook. "We reunite hundreds of pets per year with their families thanks to the microchip. ALWAYS make sure your pet has a chip and that it's updated!"
"He was gone, and then we got the call today that they found him," Justin Carpenter, Ochoa's husband, said in the video posted by the Houston SPCA. "It was unexpected for sure, we counted it as a loss, but if it wasn't for the microchip we would have never found him."
"It was a privilege for us to help bring Cash back home to his family where he belongs," a representative for the Houston SPCA told PEOPLE in an email Monday. "Cash clearly had experienced some rough times while he was lost over the past year and a half."
"It's the perfect example of why a registered microchip is so critical for pets," the SPCA added. "It can mean the difference in whether a lost pet makes it back to his or her family."
During their reunion with Cash, the dog's ecstatic pet parents said they purchased new toys to welcome the injured dog home and were excited for Cash to surprise their young daughter when she returned home from school that day, according to the SPCA's release.
The video shared on Facebook by the Houston SPCA shows Cash seeing his owners for the first time in nearly two years; it ends with the family departing to continue the reunion at home.
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