Dog reunited with Lloyd Harbor family after 4 years

Few missing pet stories result in a happy ending. Even fewer take four years to reach that ending.

Gwynne Wicks and her sons are celebrating after their beloved dog Cooper was returned to them earlier this month, after more than four years. The dog, who disappeared from Wicks' Lloyd Harbor home, was found 17 miles away in Brentwood thanks to a microchip she had implanted in him.

"He's very happy to be home," Wicks said.

When the dog - then just a year-and-a-half old - went missing in 2006, the family said it wallpapered every neighborhood from Cold Spring Harbor to East Northport with "missing dog" fliers and sent out a local e-mail "blast" hoping someone would spot their precious pooch. But as weeks and then months passed, optimism began to fade. As their plane landed in New York after a vacation, Wicks looked over at her son David, then 10, and saw tears streaming down his face. He said, "I can't believe Cooper is not going to be there when we get home."

Islip shelter supervisor Joanne Daly said the dog was found wandering the streets of Brentwood in May. Cooper - who is a coton de Tuléar, a small, hypoallergenic breed native to Madagascar - came in with matted fur but was healthy, she said. No one came looking for the dog, she said, and when they found the microchip, they traced its ownership to Wicks and called her.

It was a call Wicks had long lost hope of receiving, a cell phone call so jarring she had to pull off the Long Island Expressway. "I said, 'Wait a second, what are you telling me? You found my dog from four years ago?' "

Wicks said her two sons, David, now 14, and Michael, 8, were "thrilled" when she relayed the news. When she went to the shelter, she approached Cooper's cage and said his name. "He turned around and looked at me and gave me a big lick," she said with a laugh. "I said, 'That's him!' "

Wicks and Daly believe the dog, who was wearing a name tag and electric collar when he disappeared, was probably stolen. "With these small dogs, that's what people do, they just scoop them up," Daly said.

Whoever took care of the dog trained him well. Cooper is now house trained, doesn't bark as much and responds to commands.

Wicks said she hopes her story will inspire others to get their pets microchipped.

"I'm just so grateful to have him back and that he's healthy," she said. "It really was a happy ending for us."

Microchips for pets

What is it: A tiny transponder the size of a grain of uncooked rice. It is implanted under the dog's skin and read by a chip scanner or wand.

How it works: The chip identification number is stored in a tiny transponder that can be read through the dog's skin by a scanner emitting low-frequency radio waves. The frequency is picked up by a tiny antenna in the transponder, and the number is retrieved, decoded, and displayed in the scanner readout window.

Finding a pet: When a vet, shelter or humane society finds a lost or missing pet, they use the scanner to read your pet's chip.