Exclusive by Geoff Barnes

MISSING moggy Timmy found there was no hiding place against micro-technology after he went "walkabout" for seven months.

Relieved owner Michelle Stones, from New Brighton, was reunited with her pet this week - thanks to a micro-chip the size of a grain of rice.

Timmy, a long-haired black cat, went missing from the home of Michelle's mother in Westbourne Road, Birkenhead earlier this year, where she had been staying to get over an illness. Michelle feels Timmy got confused by the change of address and lost his bearings.

She said: "We weren't letting him out because he didn't know the area. But he slipped out of a back window, wandered off and couldn't find his way home. The week before he had lost his collar which had my phone number on it."

After a series of fruitless searches Michelle was convinced she would never see three-year-old Timmy again. She put notices in pet shop windows without success and had almost resigned herself to the fact that he had been run over by traffic.

She was unaware that he had strayed into the Kingsland Road area of Birkenhead - about a quarter-of-a-mile from Westbourne Road - and was being fed regularly by a resident who became concerned when she realised he was not going home.

Timmy was taken to the RSPCA's Wirral Animal Centre in Cross Lane, Wallasey, where staff scanned him for a micro-chip.

Not only did they discover he was chipped they also found he had been adopted from the animal centre when he was a kitten.

A quick telephone call was all it took to reunite Timmy with Michelle.

Peter Bolton, animal welfare manager for the RSPCA in the north, said: "This case shows why, if you love your pet, the single best thing you can do is to ensure it is micro-chipped.

"The chip is inserted painlessly into the scruff of the animal's neck and contains a unique reference number which is linked to the owner's name and address on the Pet Log database.

"If he hadn't been micro-chipped Timmy may never have seen his family again."