Poor doggie.
Good question about where was it for 12 years and how did it survive, since it seems nobody adopted it in the meantime.
But somehow it survived and hopefully will have a few more good years with its original owner.
:)
We adopted a 5yo mixed breed from a shelter earlier this year. She had been at the shelter for 2 years. We took her to our vet and they wanded her and found a chip! The chip registry made an attempt to contact the owners but couldn’t locate them, so we got to keep the dog.
Bottom line: chips float around in the dog’s body and are easily missed by an inexperienced or rushed operator. And if enough time goes by the owner’s contact information on the chip registry can go out-of-date.