A pet Chihuahua named “Gizmo” has reportedly returned to his Las Vegas home nine years after being kidnapped by heartless strangers.
Judith Monarrez said the tiny puppy was just 2 years old when he ran away with the family’s two other dogs and was picked up by a woman who promised to take him to the vet, but then disappeared.
Monarque last week He told KTNV-TV He said he received a call saying that Gizmo had been identified through a microchip.
“I broke down in tears,” she told the outlet. “I knew it was him right away. I’ll never forget those amber eyes. I’ll never forget those eyes. That’s Gizmo.”
The Chihuahua escaped from a home in Las Vegas on February 3, 2015.
While a neighbor was able to catch the family’s other pets, Gizmo was picked up by a stranger.
“She said she was going to pick him up and have my neighbor check him for a chip, but that never happened,” Monarrez said. “I’ve been posting for years, I mean, I posted loads of fliers after he went missing, I reached out to Facebook groups too.
“It was horrible,” she added. “It’s heartbreaking. It makes you lose faith in humanity.”
But on July 17, after the now 11-year-old puppy was left at an animal emergency center in Henderson, Nevada, she got a surprise call from the company that registered Gizmo’s microchip.
“When I called, they were like, ‘We’ve got him. It’s him!’
Gizmo was a little damaged by his years of hardship, but was expected to recover.
“He had a lot of hairballs,” Monarrez said. “He was missing a lot of teeth. I was told that when he was abandoned, his teeth had fallen out of his mouth.”
“I had severe dental disease, periodontal disease,” she said. “I also had a bad eye infection.”
Still, Gizmo is expected to recover, thanks in part to a gofundme.com page that has raised more than $5,300 so far to cover Gizmo’s veterinary costs, KTNV reported.
