Lost dog brought to TX in dispute

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- A missing dog from Kentucky, turned up hundreds of miles from home in Montgomery County. A simple device you can get for your pet led a shelter to the dog's real owner.

A Montgomery County woman found Trudy, a two-year-old German Shepherd, while vacationing in Kentucky about a month ago and brought her here. The obedient and well-behaved dog went missing on April 25. By phone, owners Tom and Deborah Griswald told Eyewitness News they searched everywhere, but had no luck.

"We had posters everywhere," Deborah said. "All the vets were notified within the area. She was out there on DogDetective.com and on Home Again's website."

The tip came from the Internet that Trudy had been found and brought to Texas. The Griswalds tried to get the dog back on their own, but weren't successful.

"She didn't want to give the dog up," explained LaJeane Thomas with the Montgomery County Animal Shelter. "She said was in love with the dog and she did not want to give the dog up."

Trudy does have a microchip implanted under her skin proving she belongs to the Griswalds. Once the Montgomery County Animal Shelter scanned the chip, Trudy was removed from the woman immediately.

The shelter gets about 2,000 dogs a month, and very few have the chip.

Dr. Dudczak said, "It's a great thing. I've been chipping my animals since the 80s. You can chip birds, you can chip horses, you can chip dogs and cats."

It's an easy and pain-free process, and if every dog had one, there would be many more happy stories like Trudy's.

Deborah said, "We have been just ecstatic!"

Once implanted under the skin, microchips will last the lifetime of your pet. They can't fall off, like a collar and tags, and don't need to be replaced. Microchips vary in cost, depending on the type you want. But they can start as low as about $6 a chip.

The question over the last couple of days is how to get Trudy home. Plane tickets cost about $300, which is more than the owners can afford. But plans have now been made to get Trudy on a flight at 3:00 Friday, paid for by the ASPCA. She had a final checkup, making sure she's healthy enough to fly back to Kentucky.

"We're just trying to make sure she's free from infectious disease before she travels," said veterinarian Dr. Darrell Dudczak. "We don't want to subject any dog she might be traveling with."

Trudy has a clean bill of health.

We tried to contact the woman who took the dog, but were unsuccessful.

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