Maggie Welz, from New York, is now back with her cat Tiger after an animal rescue worker who came across him used a microchip scanner to track his owner down.
Tiger went missing after running out of a door that had been left open at the family home, UPI reported. Although Maggie and her family moved to an apartment further down the street, she always held the hope that her missing cat would one day return and asked neighbours to keep an eye out for her.
It tool Carol a while to gain Tiger’s trust, after which she scanned his microchip and was able to find Maggie. 
She said: ‘Each year he came to my house, he deteriorated more and more each year, and that’s when I realized either somebody just abandoned him or he just was missing or lost or he was just a feral cat.
‘This spring he started to come around a little bit more in the mornings so I started to work harder to gain his trust.’
Maggie was full of praise for the SPCA and said: ‘I can’t tell them how grateful I am to them for their persistence and their dedication and for making sure that our cat was OK. ‘I have no idea where he was for the years in between, I’m sure he could tell us many tales, but the thing is that he is now home with us and he will be with us for the remainder of his life.’
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