A handsome Russian blue came into FixNation as part of a large-scale T-N-R effort, a friendly boy who had recently joined a caretakers’ colony. Blue, as she’d been calling him, had shown up about a month ago, and usually came by for dinner nightly. He was a large, outgoing cat, quite different from the rest of the colony that was quite feral. The trapper resolved to find him a new home, and brought him into FixNation for neutering before putting him up for adoption.
To everyone’s surprise, Blue was not only already neutered but also microchipped…and his name was Max, and his home was about seven miles away! I contacted the owners, who promptly called back, somewhat shocked, as they said although Max was an indoor-outdoor kitty, she had last seen him just that morning when she fed him breakfast and let him outside for the day. This made no sense, because the trapper said she had trapped the evening prior. We thought perhaps she had two similar looking cats and was mistaken…
…And it was a case of mistaken identity! Max was not Max afterall- Max was indeed hanging out in his front yard, minding the neighborhood as usual. Our visitor at FixNation wasn’t Max, he was Bixby! Apparently the implanting veterinarian had accidentally swapped the names on the registrations cards for the microchips of the two nearly identical gray brothers. And Bixby had most certainly been missing! After more than a year and a half, Chris had all but given up on seeing Bixby again!
And, now, after quite an adventure, and thanks to a benevolent caretaker and an up-to-date, if somewhat mixed-up, microchip, Bixby is back safe at home, guarding the yard.
