It was more than two years ago that Alie, a shepherd mix, disappeared from her home in Munford, Tennessee. The help of animal activist Teresa Martin reunited Alie with her owner.
Jessica Collins was 19-years-old when her six-month-old puppy Alie disappeared. Collins had gotten Alie microchipped but she wasn’t aware that she needed to call to register the chip. Collins looked for Alie for a long time but as months turned into years her hope dwindled.
On January 23rd Memphis Animal Services picked Alie up in a field. Alie was in good health, but since Jessica hadn’t known to register the microchip Memphis Animal Services didn’t have any contact information to go off of. Instead they contacted Teresa Martin. “They came to a dead end,” said Martin. “So he asked me could I work my magic and find the owner of this dog.”
For two years Martin has helped reconnect 3,000 pets with their owners. Martin contacted the manufacture of the microchip, found out who it was distributed to and called the distributors. She found two distributors who sold the particular microchip that Alie had. From there she was able to narrow it down to the zip code for Munford, Tennessee.
Once Martin had narrowed it down to Munford she began making random phone calls to all the vets offices there. Eventually she found one that had a record of Alie and Jessica Collin’s address. The Collins had since moved to Hernando, Mississippi but Martin tracked them down. “We got a phone call Friday night from Teresa saying, this dog’s on death row,” said Andrea Collins, Jessica’s mother.
Jessica broke down in tears when she found out. On Saturday morning the Collins were at the Memphis Animal Shelter before it was even opened. The Collins were in for a big surprise when they got to the shelter. As they walked back to see Alie they found her with nine puppies. Alie had given birth while at the shelter and not even Martin had been told about the puppies. The Collins couldn’t leave the puppies at the shelter to face euthanasia so they took all of them home and plan to find them good homes.
Martin is helping the Collins connect with a rescue group who might be able to get the one-week-old puppies the vaccinations they need at a discount. More information on how to help the puppies can be found at Martin’s Facebook page.
