LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Nakota Harris adopted cat Binx from Almost Home Humane Society for her son’s third birthday. Binx had an adventurous streak, Harris said, and liked to wander off but always came home, until one day he didn’t.

“One day he just didn’t come back,” Harris said. “He was gone for a while and then I had to move.”

This was two and a half years ago and Harris eventually abandoned all hope of finding Binx. Then, this past weekend, Harris received a call from Almost Home Humane Society to say their cat had been found.

“I was so excited,” she said. “I was even more excited for my son because until that day he still talked about Binx.”

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Stacy Rogers, executive director of Almost Home Humane Society, said Binx was able to be reunited with his family because the cat had been microchipped.

“We had actually adopted Binx out originally so when he came in as a stray we scanned him and called the person on record,” Rogers said.

Harris said she thinks Binx was living with another family in the time he was missing. She hopes his story will compel people that find stray pets to take them to a shelter so they can be scanned for a microchip and, if possible, returned to their original owners.

That’s just what Jessie Barton Leckrone did when she found Binx wandering around her neighborhood last week. Leckrone volunteers with Ruff Refuge Animal Rescue and knew the animal might have a chip.

“If you gently massage the skin between the animal’s shoulder blades it feels like a grain of rice just beneath the skin,” Leckrone said.

Rogers said it happens only occasionally that pets are reunited with their owners after such a lengthy separation. It’s usually microchips that allow for such a reunion.

Elizabeth Westfall adopted a cat, Murray, from Almost Home in 2014, but he went missing shortly thereafter. Murray's story is very similar to Binx's.

“We went through the grieving process and accepted he was gone but last week my husband got a phone call from the shelter saying he had been found,” Westfall said.

Much like the Harris family, they were in shock. Since Murray disappeared, she added, things had changed a bit at home, most notably the birth of the Westfall’s third son. Despite his three-year disappearance, however, Westfall said Murray seems to have settled quite comfortably into his new, old home.

Rogers said stories like these should motivate people to microchip their pets and also bring in found or stray animals to the shelter.

Leckrone said she’s happy she took Binx in immediately so he could be reunited with his owners.

“The volunteers and staff at Almost Home were so nice and so excited for Binx to be reunited with his family,” she said. “I think that this illustrates the importance of microchipping your pets. Binx got his happy ending but there are so many pets that go missing and don’t find their families again.”