For nearly 12 years, Flor was a missing part of Vanessa Antonino’s life.
“Wherever we went, we were always together. It was me and her; she was my shadow,” Antonino said of her 15-year-old chihuahua.
After going missing on the North Side of Chicago all those years ago, Antonino spent months looking for her beloved companion, ultimately to no avail.
“It’s not that I accepted it, but I told myself, in a way, maybe someone who can give her a better life took her in.”
Years of wondering and worrying about what could have happened to Flor ended on Tuesday, when Antonino received a call she could have never predicted from the Evanston Animal Shelter.
“We have Flor,” Antonino recalled a shelter volunteer voicing to her over the phone. “I just went crazy. I started crying, shaking …it had been so many years, but she made it back.”
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Flor was fortuitously found in Gary, Indiana this week, after severe storms tore through the area earlier this month, leading to widespread power outages, destruction of property and substantial flooding.
Maddie Ratkowski, a veterinary student intern at Evanston Animal Shelter, told Pioneer Press the chihuahua was first discovered “roaming the streets of Gary” by a construction worker from Louisiana who was visiting to help with storm damage cleanup efforts. Ratkowski said Flor appears to be healthy and in good condition.
The Louisiana woman took Flor to Griffith Animal Control and Shelter, where they located a small microchip in the dog’s ear. Because the chip was outdated and did not include a current phone number, the organization contacted Microchip Hunters, a group of volunteers who research “dead-end microchips” to reunite pets with their families.
“When you microchip an animal, there’s a lot of behind the scenes info [someone can capture],” Ratkowski added.
“They often will record the implant facility and who the chip was sold to. So from a rescue perspective, if we get an animal that has a microchip, sometimes the owner won’t have called the company to put any of their information on the chip, but we can see if it was implanted at a rescue, and then that allows us to reach out to the rescue and say, ‘hey, do you know this dog?’”
Microchip Hunters contacted the Evanston shelter’s canine director Tuesday to notify them that Flor had been found in Gary and had an owner currently living in Evanston.
That’s when Evanston Animal Shelter got to work. Volunteer Gillian Primavera offered to drive down to Gary after work the following evening to pick up Flor, while another employee called Antonino to tell her the extraordinary news.
“I was in shock. I could not believe it, and in a way, I kind of didn’t believe it until I saw her,” Antonino recalled of learning Flor was still alive.
Antonino and her four children — all of whom were born after Flor went missing — drove together to pick up the dog, in a reunion she described as very tearful and long-awaited.
“She’s a big sister now,” Antonino said with a laugh. “[My kids] knew what she meant to me and what she still means to me…When I told them [the shelter] found Flor, they said, ‘We’re getting her, mommy, right? We’re getting her! She’s coming home.’”
Flor appears to be in good health. “She looks remarkably well” for her age, Ratkowski said, adding that Griffith Animal Shelter conducted flea and tick treatment and deworming.
How Flor made her way from the north side of Chicago all the way to Gary remains a mystery, but Ratkowski said the reunion is a good reminder of why to always microchip your pet.
“Any stray found in Evanston comes through our doors, dogs and cats, and the first thing that we do is always scan the animals for a microchip,” she said.
If they do have a chip, the animal’s chance of being reunited with their rightful owner skyrockets, Ratkowski added.