One of the scariest experiences you can ever have is losing your animal. An animal can get out of its cage or even slip from its owner’s grip and wander away. While there are several ways to protect an animal from getting lost, using a microchip is an effective way to get them back.
What Is a Microchip?
A microchip is a small-sized electronic chip enclosed in a glass cylinder as tiny as a grain of rice. Every microchip has an identification number computed into a system with information about the animal and its owner. A microchip gets placed between an animal’s shoulder blades underneath its skin.
Can Microchipping Be Done on Any Animal?
Microchipping is not limited to a specific animal. Your veterinarian can microchip animals such as ferrets, horses, dogs, cats, and more.
How Is the Microchip Implanted Into an Animal?
A microchip gets implanted into an animal through an injection. A hypodermic needle injects the chip beneath the skin. Though the syringe used is slightly bigger than the typical one, the jab is not more painful than a standard injection.
No anesthesia or surgery is required for the implantation to take place. Your veterinarian can implant the microchip during your routine visits. If your pet is under anesthesia because of surgery like a spaying or neutering procedure, microchipping can still get done while they are unconscious.
Effectiveness of Microchips in Returning Lost Animals
When an animal is rescued and taken to a veterinary clinic or a shelter, the first thing they do is scan it for a microchip. If the chip’s registry has accurate information, finding the animal’s owner is a quick process.
A study done on an animal shelter with 7,700 stray animals showed that 21.9 percent of the time, dogs without microchips would get returned to their owners, while 52.2 percent of the time, dogs with microchips got returned to their owners.
Microchips use radiofrequency waves to transmit identification codes and phone numbers of the registry. Animal owners submit the needed documents to the parent company to register the chip implanted on their animals. Once a lost animal gets recaptured, an animal shelter or veterinarian office will scan the animal for a chip, and if the chip gets found, they can contact the registry. The registry then calls the animal owner.
Microchips cannot lose their effectiveness if an animal gets lost for a long time. Scanners contain radio waves that activate microchips by passing over them.
Information inputted in the database is accurate and efficient. Registries use the information you recorded to contact you. The information you put in the account is not available to the public.
Cons of Microchipping
The benefits of microchipping outweigh the cons. The risks of microchipping are very low. Microchipping can give you little to no help if you fail to update the registry with your new contact information.
For more on how microchips help return lost animals, contact Madison Animal Care Hospital at our office in Madison, Alabama. You can call 256-461-7575 today to schedule an appointment. For emergency cases, you may call 256-715-8389 or visit our specialist emergency center in Huntsville, Alabama.
