An Implanted Microchip Not Only Failed to Have Prevented Percy from Being Stolen but Its Database Operators Steadfastly Refused to Help Him Find His Way Home

Percy Was Already Nine Yeas Old When He Vanished in 2020

"Mum loved Percy. He was a lovely cat, quite cuddly. He had a comical meow and we all adored him."
-- Nicola Abbotson

Some years ago, Silke Abbotson of March, a small town of twenty-three-thousand residents in Cambridgeshire and located one-hundred-forty-six kilometers northeast of London, adopted a gray and white cat named Percy. He either had been previously microchipped or she later had that procedure performed herself.

The mere fact that she reportedly had confined him indoors in order to acquaint him with his new surroundings is a strong indication that this was not his first home and that he conceivably could have had one or more previous owners. Although it has not been publicly disclosed when she acquired him, it is known that he was born in 2011.

For whatever reason, Ibbotson's plan backfired on her and he got out and disappeared in 2020 when he already was nine years old. She reported his disappearance to Petlog, which is owned by the Kennel Club in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, and with more than thirteen million customers is the largest pet database in England, but she never heard anything from it in return.

Two years later in 2022, she departed this vale of tears without ever knowing what had become of Percy. She apparently had just assumed that he had been killed and that is never either an intelligent or a responsible assumption for anyone to make who truly cares about a cat. 

Oblivious to the comings and goings of both cats and humans, time kept right on moving and even Ibbotson's now twenty-eight-year-old daughter, Nicola, soon forgot all about Percy. Such is the way of the world nowadays in that the departed are seldom either mourned or even remembered for very long.

Then out of the blue in September of this year she received a notification from Petlog that an unidentified party had applied to update Percy's data in its database and that could only mean that her mother's long-lost cat was, miraculously, still alive. Her surprise and elation quickly gave way to consternation and anger when Petlog chose to hide behind the Data Protection Act of 1998 by steadfastly refusing to inform her as where he was now living and with whom.

Not about to accept that absurd cruelty and injustice, Nicola launched an online campaign on social media for answers. Through those efforts she learned from an unidentified woman in Plymouth, three-hundred-eleven kilometers southwest of London in Devon, that a member of her family had picked up Percy from the street in 2020. 

Her unidentified partner then took to the telephone in order to contact local veterinarians and through that effort that individual learned that Percy had undergone dental work in September but that the surgery that had treated him either had not scanned him for an implanted microchip or, if it did, it had chosen for whatever reason not to have contacted Ibbotson.

To make a long story short, Ibbotson eventually learned the name and address of Percy's new keeper and set up a meeting with that individual that was scheduled to have taken place sometime in November. It has not proven possible to learn what was decided at that meeting but Ibbotson initially had demonstrated little interest in being reunited with Percy.

Arguing that he is now fourteen years old, settled, and happy where he is, she apparently does not want any part of him. She quite obviously has moved on but it is difficult to understand how that she in good conscience could possibly turn her back on Percy, especially considering how much that he supposedly meant to her mother.

"Mum loved Percy. He was a lovely cat, quite cuddly," she recalled to BBC on October 28th. (See "Microchipped Cat Feared Dead Found after Five Years.") "He had a comical meow and we all adored him."

Nicola Ibboton Apparently Does Not Want Percy Back

Adoration would thus appear to be every bit as fleeting and fickle as love itself.

Whether it was intentional or not, both she and her mother failed Percy in 2020 by allowing him to have gotten away but now she has been presented with a golden opportunity in order to make amends for that mistake. When it comes to lost cats, not many owners receive second chances and such rare opportunities never should be squandered.

Secondly, caring for a cat is a lifetime moral commitment that cannot be sloughed off, that is, if one has a conscience.

For its part, Petlog has not had anything to say in defense of its disgraceful behavior that is either intelligent or even remotely responsible. "If a pet is marked as missing on our database, there is always contact with the existing recorded keeper to ratify any changes to a pet's keepership or request for any amendments to the keepership record," a spokesperson for the company told the BBC.

Conspicuously missing from its nonsensical spiel is any acknowledgement of its duty to facilitate, not obstruct, the reunification of lost cats with their rightful owners. C'est-à-dire, Petlog took the elder Ibbotson's money under false pretenses by steadfastly refusing to lift so much as a lousy finger in order to assist her daughter in that regard. 

While it is true that the company's notification that someone was tampering with Percy's data did alert Nicola to the fact that Percy was still alive, she nevertheless was left to her own devices in order to not only track down the individual who now has custody of him but to make her own arrangement with that individual if she wanted to reclaim him. Most importantly of all, if she had not been able to have tracked down Percy's new guardian and to have come to some amiable agreement with that individual, she would have been forced to enter into a protracted and expensive legal tug-of-war.

This is by no means the first time that Petlog has been exposed as a sham operation. For example, in July of 2016 Karen Young of Drayton Bassett, five kilometers south of Tamouth in Staffordshire, received a letter from it requesting a change of ownership for her then seven-year-old Bengal, Tigger.

The problem with that asinine request was that the cat that she had purchased in 2009 for £800 had disappeared in 2012. What really got her goat, however, was the arrogant and shabby way in which she was treated by the company which included it referring to her as a "third party."

"But when I got in touch with Petlog and told them I was the owner and I wanted to be reunited with my cat, they refused to tell me who had him, due to data protection rules and instead said they'd pass on my details," she revealed to The Telegraph of London on August 16, 2016. (See "Missing Cat Found after Four Years -- but Family Can't Be Told Who Has It Because of Data Protection Rules.") "They told me it was up to the people who had him to get in touch with me."

The company even had the bloody cheek to have concocted a distinction between ownership and keepership. "A microchip registration should not be treated as proof of ownership, but rather it is a record of keepership," a spokesperson for the company gassed to The Telegraph. "That is, where a pet normally resides and is intended to assist reunification if the pet goes missing."

Through the intervention of an unidentified member of the public, Young  eventually learned that Tigger was residing in Sutton Coldfield, a suburb of Birmingham, nine kilometers southwest of Drayton Bassett. Armed with that vital bit of information, her receipt from the purchase of Tigger, and his certificate of pedigree, she took her case to the Staffordshire Police.

"Via a third party, this individual or individuals, have been made aware that the cat in their possession has an owner and they should take appropriate steps to return the cat to its rightful owner," the police later informed The Telegraph. "We expect this to happen. Failure to do so could result in further action."

 Karen and Carmen Young Fought to Have Tigger Returned to Them

The intervention of the long arm of the law did the trick and the family holding Tigger returned him to Young during the second week of August of 2016. Although grateful for the return of her beloved Tigger, Young was left with nothing but contempt for both Petlog and microchips.

"Based upon my  experience I think microchipping is a scan," she told The Telegraph. "I paid for a service I'm not receiving. It's a mockery and protects criminals." (See Cat Defender post of January 24, 2017 entitled "Tigger Is Finally Reunited with His Family Despite the Best Efforts of the Administrators of a Microchip Database to Keep Them Apart.")

The veterinarian who treated Percy also failed Nicola by not scanning him and contacting her. For whatever it is worth, and that is not much, the British Veterinary Association (BVA) recommends that all of its members scan all new patients for implanted microchips.

"This ensures that the animal is correctly identified when checked against the national databases and serves as a useful reminder to a new client to ensure that they keep their details up-to-date," the association states in an undated policy statement entitled "Microchip Scanning (Dogs and Cats) and Microchip Databases" which accompanies the BBC article cited supra. "The microchip details should be recorded on the practice('s) database -- often lost pets are local to the practice and a check against the practice's own databases can provide a quick solution."

Yet, the organization's president, Rob Williams, blames the existence of more than twenty pet databases in England for the problem; by contrast, the United States has more than forty of them. "The number of separate national databases currently in existence is a hindrance to effectively reuniting lost or stray pets with owners," he groused to the BBC. "We are calling on government to streamline the system so that there is a central portal that vets, local authorities, and police can use to search microchip records rather than having to contact separate databases individually."

That is more self-serving baloney! If veterinarians, shelters, and others are either unwilling to scan cats for microchips or if they are too incompetent to locate them, what use are they? (See WALA-TV of Mobile, May 14, 2008, "Cat's Microchip Didn't Save It from Being Euthanized" and WACU-TV of Philadelphia, December 15, 2017, "Animal Shelter Euthanizes Man's Cat after Failing to Find Microchip.")

In the United States, some shelters even have privately admitted that they never bother to scan cats that they suspect of being homeless. They simply whack them despite the fact that absolutely nobody can tell the difference between a homeless and a domiciled cat with any degree of accuracy.

Secondly, if database operators, such as Petlog, will not share the troves of data that they either collect or have access to with the owners of lost cats, both they and microchips are pretty much worthless. Thirdly, if the BVA will not penalize its members who fail to scan cats for chips it would perhaps be better off if it just kept with trap shut and continued to collect its cut of the action from this outrageous racket.

Although it should be obvious, it nevertheless bears repeating that microchips do not offer cats so much as a shred of protection against their myriad of enemies, such as thieves, poisoners, dogs, wild animals, motorists, and such rabid cat-haters such as ornithologists and wildlife biologists. (See Cat Defender post of May 25, 2006 entitled "Plato's' Misadventures Expose the Pitfalls of RFID Technology as Applied to Cats.")

They also have been linked to cancer. (See Cat Defender posts of  September 21, 2007 and November 6, 2010 entitled, respectively, "The FDA Is Suppressing Research That Shows Implanted Microchips Cause Cancer in Mice, Rats, and Dogs" and "Bulkin Contracts Cancer from an Implanted Microchip and Now It Is time for Digital Angel® and Merck to Answer for Their Crimes in a Court of Law.")

Some veterinarians and shelters are so incompetent that they cannot even properly implant them. (See Cat Defender posts of  April 28, 2016 and June 23, 2016 entitled, respectively, "Sassie Is Left Paralyzed as the Result of Yet Still Another Botched Attempt to Implant a Thoroughly Worthless and Pernicious Microchip Between Her Shoulders" and "The State of North Carolina's Veterinary Division Is Covering Up a Savage Beating Dished Out to Cooper at the Rowan County Animal Shelter During the Course of a Microchipping Fiasco.")

If all of that were not enough in order to convince cat owners to swear off microchips, many of them who utilize chips do not even bother to keep their contact information up-to-data with companies such as Petlog. Like tracking collars, they also provide owners with a convenient excuse to take unreasonable chances with the lives of their cats.  (See Cat Defender post of November 15, 2023 entitled "Basil Is Abducted, Shot in the Head, and Her Body Dumped in a Creek and, Although a Neighbor Was Immediately Implicated in Her Death, Apparently No Arrest Has Been Made More Than Two Months Later.") 

Kitty Snows, a Working Cat, Was Stolen Off of I Street in Foggy Bottom  

Occasionally one of these fly-by-night database operators will abruptly take down its shingle and go out of business without warning. That is precisely what Save This Life of Austin, Texas, did in February of last year.

The Save This Life microchips already inside of cats can still be read by some scanners but it may no longer  still be possible to locate their data in the National Microchip Registry in Canton, Ohio. (See the Humane Society of Tacoma and Pierce County in Washington's press release of February 25, 2005 entitled "Pet Owners Advised to Check Microchip Registrations After 'Save This Life' Closure.")

Lastly, not all that many individuals care about their privacy and the encroachments being constantly made upon their personal freedoms by both governments and capitalists alike but microchips are manna from heaven for every fascist and totalitarian on the planet who wants to control both their lives and those of their cats. The only obvious beneficiaries of these odious devices are their manufacturers, database operators, veterinarians, and shelters who are making out like bandits.

Furthermore, the disaster that befell Percy is a textbook case of an all-too-familiar scenario that implanted microchips and databases cannot possibly even begin to remedy. In a nutshell, a cat either gets out on its own or its owner intentionally lets it out and soon thereafter it is stolen, most often, by a neighbor.

The thief then confines it indoors and that prevents its rightful owner from locating it. Without probable cause in order to procure a search warrant from a magistrate, aggrieved owners cannot search their neighbors' houses and apartments for their stolen cats.

In addition to confining such cats in indoors, the only other thing that such thieves need to remember is to steer clear of all veterinarians who might scan their new companions for an implanted microchip. All things considered, stealing a cat is the perfect crime and a good way of acquiring one for nothing and without any irksome strings attached.

Quite often these opportunistic and spur-of-the-moment thieves will soon grow tired of their stolen cats and dump them back in the street and only then if someone assumes custody of them and takes them to either a shelter or a veterinarian and their microchips are located and correctly deciphered are their original owners contacted. In many cases, however, that does not occur until five, ten, or as many as fifteen years later down the road.

Even far worse outcomes sometimes do occur. For instance, some of these stolen cats that later are dumped in the street are intentionally killed by motorists. (See Cat Defender posts of November 16, 2007 and February 8, 2017 entitled, respectively, "Fletcher, One of the Cats Adducted from Bramley Crescent, Is Killed by a Motorist in Corhampton" and "The Long and Hopelessly Frustrating Search for the Kidnapped Mr. Cheeky Ends Tragically Underneath the Wheels of a Hit-and-Run Motorist.")

Cats also are stolen to be tortured and mutilated. (See Cat Defender posts of November 23, 2018 and November 7, 2022 entitled, respectively, "The Thurston County Cat Killer Is Allowed to Get Away with Stealing and Carving Up at Least Fourteen Cats Thanks to the Blasé Attitude and Ineptitude of the Law Enforcement Community" and "In a Sad and Violent Dénouement to a Long and Happy Life, Cleo Is Brutally Slain and Mutilated in a South London Park, Reigniting Fears That the Croydon Cat Killer May Have Struck Again.")

Cats additionally are stolen for their valuable pelts and to be experimented on by eggheads at the degree mills and other devils at governmental laboratories. Some cretins even steal them in order to make meals out of them.

Because they already have been socialized, it is most often domesticated cats, such as Percy, that are stolen off the street. Due to their far more trusting nature, females are easier for thieves to snatch than are toms. It therefore is not a good idea to socialize a cat too much; an inherent fear of all strangers is beneficial for its continued survival.

Even so, both working cats as well as those that belong to TNR colonies are quite often stolen. For example, in 2021 the Humane Rescue Alliance (HRA) placed a lovely black cat named Kitty Snows on I Street in the Foggy Bottom section of Washington and surrounded by the campus of George Washington University as part of its Blue Collar Cat Program.

A Thief in Ottawa Stole Slim and Refused to Return Him

She was provided with a shelter and food and left to hunt mice. All went reasonably well until she mysteriously disappeared in January of 2024. The HRA eventually learned that she had been stolen by Barbara Rohde, executive director and president of the Mileage-Based User Fee, who in turn took her home with her to her swanky digs at the nearby, albeit infamous, Watergate Complex.

Alleging that the HRA was not only starving Kitty Snows but ignoring an injury to her noise, she adamantly refused to return her. For its part, the HRA ludicrously claimed that she was not fit for either adoption or life indoors.

Nothing further has appeared online regarding Kitty Snows so it would appear that Rohde has gotten away scot-free with her crime. Since very few, if any, rescue groups have any interest whatsoever in investigation cruelty to cats, it is pretty much a foregone conclusion that none of them are about to wage a legal battle over the custody of a working cat. (See The Hatchet of George Washington University, February 25, 2024, "Cat-astprophe: Neighbors Quarrel after Resident Takes Beloved Alley Cat" and WTOP-TV of Washington, February 25, 2024, "This District of Columbia Neighborhood Had Feline Assistance for Their Rodent Problem. Now It's 'Working Cat' Has Been Taken.")  

Clearly, equipping a cat with a collar and an identification tag is a far better method of safeguarding it than relying upon a microchip. At least they immediately let individuals and groups that are contemplating either stealing or harming it that it has an owner who cares about it.

There are still a few, but not all that many, individuals left in this wicked old world who care not only about cats but also respect private property. Collars and tags, however, are by no means foolproof.

For instance, in June of 2007 a handsome longhaired, seventeen-year-old tuxedo named Slim disappeared from the home that he had shared with Michel Giroux and Tanya Guay in Ottawa's New Edinburgh neighborhood ever since they had adopted him from a shelter when he was only three months old. On June 30th, the distraught couple received an anonymous, handwritten letter in the mail that bore the salutation "About Your Cat."

"This is to inform you that I have your cat," the letter began. The writer then went on to inform the couple that Slim was now living in the country on a lake, eating all-natural cat food, had a new female companion, and that he was "incredibly happy and healthy." 

Then after accusing Giroux and Guay of starving him, allowing him to go unbathed and ungroomed, and neglecting to attend to some sores on his body, she delivered her coup d'grâce. "Obviouly, I have no intention of returning him to the city streets to be neglected again," she declared. "If you really do care about his well-being, you'll be happy that he now lives a safe, sweet, peaceful, happy life."

Needless to say, the epistle left Giroux apoplectic. "Who does this person think she is to decide this cat is neglected," he raged. "This person has taken it upon themselves (sic) to think that they (sic) have saved a cat when in point of fact, this cat is not neglected and he's loved and we just want him home."

From there he proceded to heap scorn and ridicule upon her conclusions. "This watching the sun set while eating organic cat food -- I don't really think this is his thing," he concluded by way or arguing that Slim was happiest roaming the streets of New Edinburgh.

He and Guay filed a complaint with the police, contacted the Ottawa Humane Society, and distributed three-hundred-fifty Lost Cat posters around their neighborhood but it is highly doubtful that they ever saw either hide or hair of him ever again. Although thanks to the collar and tag that they had outfitted him with, they did learn what had become of him and that petit fait did afford them some small measure of closure. (See Cat Defender post of July 9, 2007 entitled "A Hungry and Disheveled Cat Named Slim Is Picked Up Off the Streets of Ottawa by a Rescuer Who Refuses to Return Him to His Owners.")

In addition to the legalities involved, stealing a cat is a complicated moral dilemma. For instance, allowing it to remain homeless on the street is not the humane thing to do but neither is stealing someone's beloved companion. Moreover, since thieves cannot take their stolen cats veterinarians out of a fear of being exposed, there is no way of telling how many of them that the microchipping racket is killing each year.

Both Rachel Wells and Roger Colbourne Ran Out on Snitch

Although having Slim stolen from them in such a cruel and unjust fashion could not possibly have been anything other than heartbreaking for Giroux and Guay, it also surely was traumatic for Slim as well who lost not only his lifelong guardians but everything else that was familiar to him. An endless array of stories concerning aggrieved owners appear online every day of the week but few, if any, of them ever mention what losing everything does to a cat.

Even just changing houses with their owners is traumatic for them. Nobody has ever summed up the dilemma more insightfully and eloquently than Shirley Rousseau Murphy did in her 2001 novel, Cat Laughing Last, wherein she wrote the following:

"Moving was easier for a woman than for a cat .

When people changed to a new home, they took all their familiar possessions with them, all the things that gave their daily lives resonance. A cat couldn't take her treasures.

A cat's hoard was places, a nook in a garden wall, the shade beneath a favorite bush, a tree branch that suited her exactly, the best mouse runs. All these formed a cat's world, affording her security and comfort, giving her own life structure. A cat's treasures could not be carried with her.

That was why, when humans moved with their cats, the cat wanted to return. The humans took their belongings. The cat was forced to leave hers.

That was why, when sensible folk moved to a new home, they kept their cat inside for a month, gave her time to establish new indoor haunts, discover new pleasures, wrap that new world around herself. They didn't let the cat bolt out the door and head straight for the old homestead -- a matter of a mile away, or maybe hundreds of miles. Distance didn't matter to a cat, all she wanted was to be among her belongings."

With that being the case, imagine how much more stressful it surely must have been for cats such as Percy, Kitty Snows, and Slim to have been deprived not only of their homes and possessions but also their guardians as well. Perhaps cruelest of all, with their freedom having been taken away from them there was no hope at all that they would ever be able to get outside again and to make it back home.

Thus having lost everything, they were forced to start all over again in life from scratch. In many respects doing that is far more difficult for a grown cat than being born as a helpless kitten. At least under the latter scenario, they had their mothers for milk and protection and their siblings for companionship.

Finally, anyone who ever has loved a long-lost cat never should allow it to remain with its new caretaker for two reasons. First of all, all cat-lovers are by no means created equal. Secondly, it is all but impossible for an owner to truly know how that their cat is being treated by its new caretaker and, above all, how that individual will deal with health problems that invariably crop up sooner or later and, above all, end-of-life issues.

For example, in 2003 a one-year-old brown and white tom named Snitch disappeared from the home that he shared with then nineteen-year-old Rachel Wells somewhere in the West Midlands. Her life continued and she soon forgot all about him.

Fourteen years later in January of 2017, Snitch turned up at a surgery in the West Midlands, his implanted chip was found and read and Wells contacted. It soon was learned that he had been frequenting the Black Country Living Museum (BCLM) in Dudley, which is located less than five kilometers from Wells' old abode.

As it turned out, he occasionally had been fed over the years by seventy-three-year-old maintenance man Roger Colbourne. That minuscule level of care was sufficient, however, in order to provide Wells with an excuse in order to run out on him for a second time.

Percy Faces a Very Uncertain Future

"It's a huge relief to know that he's safe, well, and is being so well looked after by Roger and the Black Country Living Museum," she rejoiced. "He gets fish and chips every day by the museum. He couldn't ask for better that that. Roger has had him a lot longer than I have and he is well-loved."

What an outrageous load of baloney that turned out to have been! First of all, Colbourne surely did not put in more than five days a week at the museum, so who fed Snitch on weekends, holidays, and when he was on vacation? Besides, a daily ration of fish and chips is hardly a suitable diet for a cat.

Secondly, since Snitch never lived with either him or at the BCLM, where did he hang hit hat for all those long, lonely years? Thirdly, Colbourne surely never provided him with so much as a jot of security and protection under such circumstances. Fourthly, he is a dog-lover.

"I was astounded to learn about Tiger's (his new name for Snitch) past," Colbourne said. "I have grown extremely close to him over the years and can't imagine life without his companionship."

Not only was that more outrageous rubbish but his lies sealed Snitch's fate. Most notably, after he had suffered a stroke in January of 2019 Colbourne wasted little time in running out on the cat that he could not "imagine life without" by fobbing off his care on an unidentified co-worker.

In April of 2019, Snitch suffered a second stroke and afterwards he either died on his own or, more likely, was killed off by the co-worker. By that time, neither Colbourne nor Wells were anywhere to be found.

"Tiger had a short, but peaceful, retirement from the museum before sadly succumbing to another stroke," is how that the BCLM chose to eulogize him in an e-mail letter dated October 1, 2020. "His passing was a great sadness to us all and he is fondly remembered by the team." (See Cat Defender post of September 22, 2020 entitled "Snitch Is Found Alive Fourteen Years after His Disappearance but His Old Owner Refuses to Take Him Back in Spite of the Shameful Neglect Shown Him by His New Caretaker.")

The disturbing truth of the matter is that all working cats, shop cats, mascots, teahouse cats, and the members of TNR colonies are treated by their caretakers as second-class citizens of the feline world. They additionally are invariably nakedly exploited for all sorts of reasons as well as hideously neglected.

To put the appalling situation succinctly, they are considered to be good enough to be mistresses but, with the notable exception of Kitty Snows, hardly worthy of ever becoming brides. Not surprisingly, their lives often end tragically. (See Cat Defender post of April 30, 2022 entitled "Relegated to the Dustbin of History and All but Forgotten by the Grossly Negligent Annapolis Maritime Museum, Miss Pearl's Beautiful Soul Continues to Cry Out from the Grave for Justice.")

Cats that are stolen often fall into that same category but as long as there is life there is a flicker of hope for them and, in Percy's case, it is still not too late for Ibbotson to have a change of heart. She could demand that he be returned to her and thereby honor the sacred trust that her mother agreed to fulfill when she first adopted him.

Regrettably, none of that appears to be in the cards. Ibbotson apparently has washed her hands of him and, like Snitch before him, Percy is on his own.

The mere fact that so many owners freely choose to behave like Ibbotson and Wells also raises the suspicion that they and other owners possibly could have intentionally abandoned their long-lost cats in the first place. In other words, they did not want them way back when and they most assuredly do not want them now and that is arguably the most poignant reason that microchips are so utterly worthless.

Photos: Nicola Ibbotson (Percy), John Devine of the BBC (Ibbotson), the Daily Express of London (Tigger with Karen and Carmen Young), WTOP-TV (Kitty Snows), Tanya Guay (Slim), and Bruce Adams of the Daily Mail (Snitch with Wells and Colbourne).