Should you mirco-chip your pet? Your dog breaks his dog leash, your indoor cat gets outdoors – what do you do?
This story is taken from the Dallas Morning News on December of 2008. On Christmas eve of 2008 a Dallas police officer found an injured dog on the side of the road with no identification tags. The officer took her to the nearest animal hospital. Most pets in this situation with no identification would be euthanized. The vet scanned the dog which revealed the name and address of the owner. The dog was named Coaster and the owners were very happy to have him home in time for Christmas. Micro chips are tiny glass cylinders about the size of a grain of rice. They contain a radio transmitter and a tiny computer with a identification number. When the scanner is passed over the chip, it sends out a signal picked up by the chips antenna. The indentification number is sent to the radio transmitter and then to the scanner where information appears on a computer screen. Micro chips are inserted by a vet with a needle. They are placed beneath the skin over the shoulder blades. They remain there for the life of the pet. The procedure is very quick and completely painless to your pet. I had this done with my cat Millie. She’s a little fiesty and once did get out of our porch at our place in Delaware. Luckily I spotted her right away! Micro chips bring home many dogs and cats. The drawbacks are non universal scanning and some owners worry about a risk for cancer which is extremely minimal. So if your dog breaks loose from his dog leash but is micro chipped, there is a good chance that you’ll get a call from the vet who scanned your dog!
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The biggest problem here is people not providing proper ID for their pets. Shelters and pet owners should check into a new program that provides id tags with live operator rescue support–called Pawtags.
The shelters receive 72% of the profits from the program and it cuts down on animal control pick-ups and service costs because they reunite the lost pet with their owners!
Not only are 90% 0f non-id lost animals not found—over 75% of all domestic animals captured nationwide by Animal Control facilities are euthanized! There’s a great new pet rescue tag service called “Pawtags Rescue”- where each tag has its own id number and Live trained 24/7 Operator rescue services for $10!
Their service allows you to develop a profile with up to ten contact numbers, listing rabies id, microchip info, city licensing, vet and medical info along with the pet’s profile. When someone finds your pet the Operators access this confidential info and use it with Google Maps, 3-way conferencing, etc. to get your pet home or to a safe place until picked up.
The service also auto-creates a PAWS Alert poster to print or PDF and more importantly gives an owner an Animal Control Facilities zip code search that provides the only locations in 50 square miles that intake lost pets! This is so important since in some cities animals only have 3 days to euthanization!
The tags are guaranteed for life, weatherproof, cool looking and for $10 you get tag and one year free service. You can upgrade to a lifetime for 19.99–so overall with a pets life average of 14 years that’s less than a $1.50 a year.
It kind of reminds me of the Verizon support team commercials–you know if anyone finds your lost animal a live trained rescue person will make sure it gets home or to a safe place. Great deal–it’s at http://www.pawtags.com