All About Microchips

Pet identification has become increasingly important over the past several years as many households now have at least one pet.  Also now more than ever, pet owners like to travel with their furry family members and we like them to be involved in many of our daily activities!  While collars are great for attaching cute or sparkly pet tags, the reality is that collars can easily be taken off by someone, catch on something in the environment and be pulled off, or sometimes for our indoor pets they don't even wear a collar routinely.  

We are frequently asked about methods of permanent identification for pets and two of the most common options are to consider tattooing (which needs to be performed under general anesthesic) or microchipping which can be done easily in an awake animal.  Microchipping involves placing a small chip that is about the size of a grain of rice under the skin of the animal, generally in a region in between their shoulder blades. The chip does not generally cause any irritation and is visible on an x-ray.

One of the main advantages of microchipping is that it can easily be performed in an animal of almost any age without requiring general anesthetic.  At Wascana Animal Hospital, our veterinarians and technicians routinely place microchips during routine exam and vaccination appointments.  Another advantage to microchipping is that nearly every veterinary clinic and animal shelter in our country will have access to a microchip scanner.  This means that your pet's identification number contained in the microchip can be read at several different locations.  Sadly, hundreds of pets every year go missing from their homes.  Should your missing pet happen to be found by someone and taken to a veterinary clinic or shelter, your pet has high probability of being identified and being returned to you. Even for indoor animals that rarely go outside, accidental escape is still a possibility and should a collar happen to come off, identification of your pet is still possible with a microchip.  Tattoos do also offer a means of permanent identification, however not every veterinary clinic or animal shelter (particularly if outside of the town or city where the tattoo was obtained) will readily have access to your local tattoo registry and subsequently identifying the missing pet's owners may be markedly delayed if at all possible.

At Wascana Animal Hospital, our veterinarians recommend that all pets have a means of permanent identification which we also register in our own software system.  Microchips are our first recommendation due to ease of administration for your animal.  Did you also know that in Regina if your pet does happen to be picked up by the Humane Society, having a tattoo or microchip can make all the difference in having your pet returned to you?  If a missing pet has no form of identification, the Regina Humane Society will only "hold" the stray animal for 72hrs, after which they become the property of the Humane Society.  Whereas if the pet has a tattoo or microchip, the animal will be held for 10 days which allows a lot more time for the owners to be located and the pet returned home.  If your pet does not currently have a tattoo or microchip please contact one of our team members to find out how to best obtain permanent identification for your furry family member!