Incredible Journey is more than just a movie about animals with a happy ending.

Sometimes incredible journeys happen in real life, too-especially when the pet has a microchip.

Just ask Scooter the cat.

Master Animal Control Officer Jan Magnuson with the Des Moines Police Department was called last week to pick up a cat that had been roaming loose near Highline Community College.

Magnuson soon found a grey-brown-black tabby male, a neutered domestic shorthair.

"The cat seemed very nice but had no collar, so I impounded him to the animal shelter in Kent," she said.

"Once at the shelter, I vaccinated him and scanned him for a microchip, and he had one!"

At that point, Magnuson called Sumner Veterinary Hospital, where the chip had been implanted, and got the owner information.

"I phoned the owner, Mary Draper," Magnuson continued. "She told me that her cat Scooter had been missing for about four years. She started crying for joy and said she would be right there to get him."

Draper, who still lives at the same residence in Sumner where Scooter was missing from, later told the Times/News that the cat was about a year old when he came to her the first time.

Scooter had been mistreated by some boys in the neighborhood, had a cracked hip and a cracked tail, and was "pretty sickly.

She took him to the vet for treatment and also had him neutered-and microchipped.

About a week later, Scooter was missing and Draper, who believes he was kidnapped, never saw him again.

Until last week, that is.

"When Mary arrived at the shelter, she was very excited," Magnuson said. "We got Scooter out of his kennel and put him in her carrier."

"I don't think he recognized me," Draper said. "He was pretty young when he went disappeared."

But he is settling in at home again.

"My cat, the one who brought him to us, is having more of a problem than Scooter is," she observed.

"He's okay now. He's fine," added Draper, who was going to take the cat to the vet for a complete physical.

With his incredible journey, wherever it took him, over at last, "Scooter seems happy."

"What an exciting story," Magnuson exclaimed. "Once again it reinforces why we encourage everyone to microchip their pets.