My dog Bella is a gorgeous little thing, with Corgi coloring and Fox Terrier long legs. The story of how we were reunited with Bella is very interesting. My wife and I were going on vacation. We have cats too. They get along fine with Bella and the neighbor kid was looking after them while we were away. But caring for a dog is different, so we took Bella to the house of my son and his wife in Sacramento, 80 miles from where we live in El Sobrante. Bella had stayed there for two months before, when we went on a cruise to Australia.

This time, my wife and I were taking a trip to the East Coast and for our return journey we had booked a train ride from Washington to San Francisco. It was while we were in Union Station in DC, ready to board for Chicago, that we got the call from PetLink saying that Bella had been found. We were not aware that she had been missing and we later learned that she had bedded down between the apartment units where my son Jonathan lives. The funny thing was that Bella was just right across the road from my son after she’d been taken in by a young woman also living in the apartments. She took Bella to a local pet supply store, where people who want to adopt pets they’ve found check to see whether they’re tagged. That’s where the microchip showed that Bella belonged to us. PetLink got a hold of me, I got a hold of my son and he went and picked Bella up with balloons and a cash reward for the young woman. So we got reunited and all is well now. The long arm of the microchip is amazing.