July 21 (UPI) -- A Utah animal shelter said a cat that went missing 10 years ago was reunited with her owner after being brought in as a stray.
The Tooele City Animal Shelter said a stray cat was recently brought into the shelter by a person who said they had been feeding the stray feline, but they were preparing to move and were concerned about leaving the cat without a consistent source of food.
The shelter scanned the cat for a microchip and found the contact information for a man who identified the cat as Mocha, his daughter's cat. The man said Mocha had gone missing from the family's home 10 years earlier, when his daughter was a teenager.
The man's daughter, now an adult, came into the shelter and was reunited with her long-lost pet.
The shelter said the story should serve as a reminder of how important it is to bring stray animals in to be scanned for microchips.
"Bringing the animals to the shelter is one of the only ways to increase the chances of their owner finding them," the shelter said. "That skinny, matted stray cat or dog that you just saw on the street may be the next pet that has been missing for over a decade, with heartbroken owners who have lost hope."