What you may or may not know about mico-chipping your pet. When a dog is found by Animal Control or a Good Samaritan and brought to a local shelter or if injured, to a veterinarian, they are scanned for a micro chip. This is good! If a chip is found it will tell the chip number and the name of the company that made the chip, also good. It will also say who put in the chip. Again Good! What it won’t say is who it belongs to. This is where the owner comes into play. Recently a dog was picked up by Animal control. She had been hit by a car and injured. A micro chip was discovered but came back to a humane society in the mid west. It had never been registered with the owners contact information. The dog could not be reunited with her owner. (FYI she has been since adopted to a new wonderful owner).
When you take your cat or dog to be micro chipped be sure to ask if the veterinarian will be registering the chip with your contact information or if you need to do this. In most cases this is your responsibility. If you are doing the registering make sure you do it immediately and UPDATE whenever you have a phone number change, or an address change. Many people have the misconception that just implanting the chip is all that is required and that is not correct. And forgetting to update when changes occur. You have probably read in the paper or on social media pages that Animal Control, shelters and rescue groups are asking, begging and pleading with owners to please keep a collar and ID on your dog. so that they can be immediately reunited with you. That is number one and the easiest but they can come off and be lost so the second line of defense is the micro chip. Accidents happen and any dog can get out of a yard or doorway. So please check with your veterinarian or mobile clinics and get your pet chipped.
