Performed my first microchipping yesterday...

[Godsgrl]

Quote:
There was a case on Animal Cops about that. A guy called in saying he found a stray dog in front of his house, with an injured eye. The cops scanned the dog, and found the dog actually belonged to him. It was his wife's dog, and they were in the middle of a divorce or something. The husband didn't know the dog was chipped.

and ended up getting prosecuted for animal cruelty.

 

[llrumsey]

I love it, I really thought that it would work!!! Now we just need to convince everyone else.

 

[AinaWGSD]

The problem is, microchipping only works if the owners take the time to register the microchip. I can't tell you how many stray cats have come in with a microchip, except when we called for information the company could only tell us who they sold the lot that that chip was in to. Then the implanter didn't have any information on the owner either. And the local german shepherd rescue I work with has had several dogs that have come back to them because they wound up at a shelter or animal control in another county (or in one case a different state!) but the only information that shelter was able to get from the microchip was that the chip was sold to the vet, who then implanted it in the dog when the rescue brought it in. Then the vet gives the rescue's contact to the shelter/AC and they call the rescue to come pick up their dog. They are a wonderful tool for reconnecting owners and lost pets, but they're totally useless if the owner doesn't register the chip and keep their information up to date.

Not to mention that proving animal cruelty/abuse/neglect is a lot harder than simply tracking down who the legal owner of the animal is. All a microchip would do is prove who owned the animal, it couldn't prove that the animal didn't escape by accident, or was stolen, before coming to be in the condition it was found in.

 

[debilorrah]

Micro thought he was being petted when he was chipped. Didn't bother him in the least, and he is a REAL wimp.

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

Quote:
The shelter I volunteer at gets a free microchip from the company every time they register one. They are usually really good about registering and I think that's great. I could definitely see that if people were expected to do it themselves, they would be likely to just forget.

 

[AinaWGSD]

I've seen it go both ways. My old girl was microchipped in rescue when she went in for her spay. My male dog was neutered already but not chipped when we got him, so he got to have his awake. He screamed when they did it. Then less than two minutes later he was snoozing on the floor in the lab, so clearly he was just being dramatic. I've seen pups as young as 8 weeks not even react to having it done awake.

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

Quote:
It also depends a lot on the people around too. I've noticed that if someone in the room is nervous about it, the animal often acts nervous. Some animals are also just big babies! I have seen some that were a pain in the butt to hold down though. That's never fun, especially when you are trying to inject them with that huge needle!

 

[AinaWGSD]

Quote:
But again, if the new owners don't update their information if they move or get a new phone number, then that microchip does the pet no good because the company has no way of contacting the owner when the pet is found. Plus, I'm not sure I would be comfortable allowing someone else to give out my personal information like that. I know if the vet who microchipped all of my pets had registered them for me I would have been very upset as I would have ended up having to pay the company to change my information when we moved. As it is, I waited until we bought a house to register my pets because I knew full well when they were microchipped (and in the case of my older dog, adopted) that my address and probably my phone number would change fairly quickly. Because I didn't want to pay the fee for registering my pets, and then pay another fee later to change my information, I simply made sure that my phone number and address were kept current with my vet so in the even that one of my pets was found and the company called, they could contact my vet who could then put them in touch with me.