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SAN CARLOS, Calif. - A feline named for a character in the movie "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" has completed an amazing adventure of his own — he has been reunited with his owner a decade after vanishing from home.
Ted was found about 13 miles south of where he used to live in Burlingame. The black cat was brought to the Peninsula Humane Society's animal shelter, which tracked down Chris Inglis using a microchip implanted in Ted before he disappeared in 1993.
"It's pretty monumental," Inglis said. "It's almost surreal."
Even though the information on the microchip was outdated, the shelter was able to track down Inglis, shelter outreach coordinator Malu Trehan said Thursday.
When the pair reunited Wednesday, "(Ted) rubbed his face on my hand, climbed right up and started purring," Inglis told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Exactly where Ted spent all those years is a mystery, but it seemed clear someone was tending to him.
When Inglis and Ted started co-habitating in 1991, Inglis was divorced, renting a one-bedroom Burlingame duplex, teaching high school and driving an old Honda Civic. Now he's married, with a four-bedroom house in San Carlos, a job as a financial planner, two daughters at home and a son in college. And he drives a Mercedes.
Inglis remembers that one of the things he and Ted liked to do was cruise around in the Civic.
On their way home from the shelter, Inglis let Ted loose in the Mercedes and "he put his front paws on the dashboard," just like the old days.
The recovery rate for missing microchipped pets statewide is 9 percent, said Bill Hamilton, president of Friends of San Francisco Animal Care and Control. Nationally, he added, about 10 million pets were lost last year — 1,939,817 carried chips, and 157,423 of them were found.
Ted was found about 13 miles south of where he used to live in Burlingame. The black cat was brought to the Peninsula Humane Society's animal shelter, which tracked down Chris Inglis using a microchip implanted in Ted before he disappeared in 1993.
"It's pretty monumental," Inglis said. "It's almost surreal."
Even though the information on the microchip was outdated, the shelter was able to track down Inglis, shelter outreach coordinator Malu Trehan said Thursday.
When the pair reunited Wednesday, "(Ted) rubbed his face on my hand, climbed right up and started purring," Inglis told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Exactly where Ted spent all those years is a mystery, but it seemed clear someone was tending to him.
When Inglis and Ted started co-habitating in 1991, Inglis was divorced, renting a one-bedroom Burlingame duplex, teaching high school and driving an old Honda Civic. Now he's married, with a four-bedroom house in San Carlos, a job as a financial planner, two daughters at home and a son in college. And he drives a Mercedes.
Inglis remembers that one of the things he and Ted liked to do was cruise around in the Civic.
On their way home from the shelter, Inglis let Ted loose in the Mercedes and "he put his front paws on the dashboard," just like the old days.
The recovery rate for missing microchipped pets statewide is 9 percent, said Bill Hamilton, president of Friends of San Francisco Animal Care and Control. Nationally, he added, about 10 million pets were lost last year — 1,939,817 carried chips, and 157,423 of them were found.
