Most animal owners consider their pets a real part of the family and the loss of a dear cat or dog can be a crushing blow. For one man, he faced the unthinkable when his dog was stolen from him six years ago. It was crushing to have his four legged friend taken from his own back yard.

Casey Church eventually gave up hope when his dog wasn’t found and he tried his best to come to terms with the fact that he would never see his beloved pet again. He hoped, at the very least, that whoever stole his dog would treat him well.

Six years later, Casey got the surprise of a lifetime — he received a life changing phone call that he almost didn’t believe at first.

Turns out, Casey had microchipped his dog when he was a puppy and that microchip eventually helped Casey get his adorable pet back in his life. The dog came into the care of the Newcastle Animal Shelter in Oklahoma, where the employees discovered who the dog really belonged to.

Casey told Koco 5 News: “Six years later, I get a phone message from Pet Link that says we found your dog.”

Tracking down Casey was no small task, it turned out, as the animal shelter’s scanner wasn’t working and they had to find another shelter who could scan the dog.

Though the chip could be read, it was a disappointing dead end initially, as they discovered that the chip was no longer registered, but they knew they had to find the dog’s owner.

The shelter did some detective work to track down Casey, contacting the manufacturer’s database of clinics it sells microchips to and from there they could follow the trail to find the animal hospital where the chip had been impanted. As luck would have it, the animal hospital still had Casey’s information on file!

The animal shelter staff elaborated: “got a call from the Newcastle shelter that they had a dog brought in yesterday that they couldn’t find their microchip scanner. So, they asked if I could come by and get some photos of him and scan him for a chip.”

Casey was finally reunited with his amazing pet and they were able to reconnect again. Casey said of the reunion with his dog, “I’ve got me my son back.”

While Casey saw that his dog had grown a bit older and now had gray hair, the dog remembered his well loved owner and they could now make up for all of the lost time they spent apart.

The reunion was very emotional as the dog clearly was excited to be back with his family, with Casey remarking, “He’s still kinda wacky a little at times, but he’s still the same dog.”

For anyone on the fence about the extra cost of microchipping a pet, Casey says this is definitely proof that it’s worth it, as he explained, “That chip really, really can do some wonders.”

One commenter on the KOCO 5 News Facebook post about the story remarked, “The microchip needs to double as a GPS!”