Microchip Your Pet to Help Bring Them Home

Every year, thousands of pets go missing and many don’t make it back home. Traditional identification like collars and tags need to be replaced regularly and can slip off, break, or become damaged. Microchips offer a safe, simple form of identification that is reliable, lasts a lifetime, and cannot get stolen, lost, or damaged.

A microchip is about the size and shape of a grain of rice and is implanted under the skin between your pet’s shoulder blades. The process only takes a few minutes and is no more painful to your pet than a typical injection. No surgery or anesthesia is required and it can be implanted during a routine veterinary office visit.

Each microchip carries vital information about your pet, including your name, address, and contact information. Once your pet’s microchip has been placed, you will be given a registration form to complete. Registering the number on the microchip includes your pet in a national pet recovery database, so it is a very important step to complete. Veterinary hospitals, animal shelters, and animal control offices across the country are equipped with special electronic scanners that can detect the microchip and read the identification number. If a lost pet is picked up by animal control or found by a good Samaritan and presented to a veterinarian, a quick scan of the microchip reveals the identification number. A toll-free phone call to the pet recovery database alerts the microchip company that a lost pet has been identified. The pet owner can then be contacted and reunited with his or her pet!

Young puppies and kittens can receive microchips, but even if your pet is already an adult, you should consider microchipping. Even indoor pets can get outside accidentally and get lost, so if you’re relying on other forms of identification, you could be placing your pet at risk. Microchipping is a safe, effective way to help ensure your pet’s return home if the unthinkable happens.