Microchipping your dogs and litters and yearly fees? - Page 1

A friend and I were talking about this the other day.  We wanted to microchip all the pups in our litters but we learned that in order for the microchips to remain effective you have to pay a monthly or yearly fee to the makers of the chip so that the information is accessible in case a dog gets lost and ends up in the shelter. 

I understand these companies want to make money, but I think these annual fees are ridiculous.  I would like to have all of my dogs and any pup I produced to have a microchip in my name so if anything happens the  dog/pup can always come back to me.  But there is no way on earth I could afford to maintain annual fees for all of them. 

What do you do?  What is the best way to do this?  Do we just go with tattoing everyone and registering the tattoo numbers with AKC?   How many of you microchip all of your pups and pay fees?  is there any microchip company that you don't have to pay fees too and the chips still provide contact info?  

AKC has microchips and can also be registered with the AKC.

What?  I had my female chipped at the vet this summer and no one said anything about a monthly fee.  My boy came chipped, i assume the breeder takes care of any fee if there is one.

I guess it isn't a hug deal since I will have the both tattoed as well when they get their x-rays done for OFA this summer, but the vet never mentioned a subscription fee or anything.  Kind of defeats the purpose of getting the chip.

If you are referring to the yearly fees charged by Home Again, it is not necessary to pay it for the microchip to remain effective. The first registration fee registers the microchip with them and gives you their added services for the first year, then the annual fees are not needed to be paid, they only give you their extra services they offer. I chip all my puppies with HomeAgain chips and do not renew the annual fees and they still work just fine. I've called them and confirmed this with them so I know it to be true. I can't say anything about any other companies I can only speak for the Home Again chips. The Home Again chips are also approved for dogs traveling internationally, all dogs must be microchipped now in order to travel to Germany, no matter if they are tattoed or not, they must have a microchip.

I use AVID microchips.

Years and years ago, when all of the chip companies first came out, I chose AVID because of several things:

-AVID scanners read ALL chips (at the time) but Home Again scanners didn't read anything but their brand.
-AVID had a kennel membership plan, and it still to this day allows me to register ALL of my pets for the same original fee I paid (they don't have this plan any longer, but do have a multi-pet plan)
-AVID supplied a much better set of documents/literature to go along with the chips.. (Home Again gave me a 1 inch strip of paper and a yellow tag.. nothing more.)

I currently chip ALL of my puppies with AVID chips... and then buy prepaid registrations at a discount for the new puppy buyers. (The chip comes with the pup, but the regsitration they purchase.) I have had only one or two families who didn't purchase the registration...  because they already had a multi-pet plan with AVID.

Additionally, AVID came out with a eurochip some time ago, which IS read by the "home again" scanners, and I have been using their eurochips ever since.

They do charge a $6 fee if you move, and have to change/update your info. Also if the animal is transferred to another .. the fee is small.



My vet had a different chip that we had to use once..  "RES-Q".. it came WITH the registration...  but since I didn't put it in MY name, there is no way the company will contact me if that pup ever winds up in a shelter.  It was also more than $40, and that's about twice what I pay for AVID.

A topic for another day...  Just because you chipped your pup.. (breeders) doesn't mean you will ever get the call when it gets dumped at a shelter/pound/rescue..

TRUE story...  a pup of mine was reliquished (unbeknownst to me) by an irresponsible owner (my bad selling it to her) and it wound up eventually being adopted out by a rescue to a very good family..
I was NEVER contacted by the irresponsible owner, the pound she dumped it at, the rescue that adopted it out...  only the NEW owner who had adopted it bothered to contact me... 
She said it took her literally 3 minutes on the net to find me.

Chips are NOT a guarantee that you will ever get contacted if the animal winds up in dire straits..  I wish there were a better way to manage them..

 NO one ever told me I had to pay for my chips to remain valid..

 I have three chipped when I purchased them.. I do not chip my pups..I tatoo.

YR

The biggest problem I have had with the AVID chips is migration. The chips (one more then one dog, I might add) where
NOT where they were supposed to be, but on the belly or chest area. I have had one Home Again chip stop working after
implantation (we scanned the whole dog and nada). I would just check at vet visits to make sure they are still where they
are supposed to be if you use AVID.

Now, the Home Again registrations do NOT need to be renewed to continue with their purpose. That is for the "premium"
service they offer. I too have looked into this and know it to be fact.

I like the Home Again chips better, mainly because they haven't migrated so far and also because they don't charge you everytime
you change information on the chips. The cost was nearly identical for litter kits of either. It's been 2 years since I've ordered any,
so not sure of the going rate now.

Melissa

It is my understanding that you don't need to register the chip with the company that made it...in my case, I have home again chip, but felt that their annual fee is ridiculous, so I submitted the chip number with the AKC registration. So now, when you look up my dog's chip number at http://www.petmicrochiplookup.org/ you will get the AKC info. So you can register your chip with any company you want to.

All said, I agree with DenWolf, microchip or not, there are no guarantees that the chip will work or that whoever got your dog will ever scan it. I wish I could put a GPS on the dog just in case.

Thank you for all the advice, this is good information. 
I wish that all dog wardens/pounds, shelters and rescues were required by law to scan every animal that comes thru their doors, even if it was an "owner drop-off"  just in case.   There really isn't any reason why they can't since Home Again and Avid offer free scanners to these non-profits. 

BTW, Botanica, there are GPS collars for dogs :)  One of them is Garvis, pretty pricey but it has a hand-held and collar with a range of up to 9 miles.  Up to 10 dogs can be put on one hand-held.  It's pretty pricey though. 
Also there is Tagg, the pet tracker GPS device for collars, $100 for the device and $8 a month fee to find your dog if it goes missing while wearing the device. 

Not sure what other GPS devices are out there.

My main interest in microchipping is so if anything should ever happen to a dog that passed through my hands or a puppy that I produced and it ends up lost or abandoned at a shelter or vet's that they would contact me and I can get the dog or pup back.   I also think that microchip IDs should be able to be "redflagged" by an owner if their dog goes missing or is stolen.  Thus if the dog is ever scanned by a vet/shelter/rescue/dog warden and an alert shows that the dog is stolen (or lost and subsequently "claimed" by persons who never bother to find the owner) then it can be returned to it's rightful owner. 

I read online that there is a bill being considered about requiring that animal microchips are universally readable by all scanners (or something to that effect)

I like that Home Again has some kind of special coating that helps the chip adhere to the tissue and thus is highly unlikely to travel in the body.  I wonder if that coating has any bad side affects?  A chip failing to work is worrisome too. 

If I could be assured that dogs (and cats) would always be scanned (and there is always a reasonable attempt to contact the owner on record) then I would be much more enthusiastic about microchips.

I wish there was something saying that all animals walking through a vet or shelter would have to be scanned as well, but only those
speciffically asking at the vets office are.

That is one reason why I tattoo as well. It's not something that can be traced easily itself, BUT it does lead someone to look further and
hopefully scan for a chip if the dog is found.



Melissa