Is microchip safe for German Shepherd? - Page 2

I've had a few chips migrate (right front chest, in armpit) and I've had tattoos become unreadable (black ear leather coupled with a super hairy dog. Without a flashlight shone through the ear, you can't see any part of it. With a flashlight, you can see a few dots)

6 of one, half a dozen of the other. I do both, but imo microchips are the better way.

Tattoos are not any good for readily finding the dog's owner... Registered microchip can prevent a lot of heartache.

Exhorbantant fees? Lol. Akc charges $15 one time to register the dog with lost and found and you can give three people for backup contact in case they can't reach you or if your phone number changes.

Over here, it has got better but when the microchip
started there were two or three competing
manufacturers, it was mostly done through vets,
and you just didn't pay once, you went on paying
annual registration fees to keep your dog's chip
number and your contact details on their lists; and
until our Kennel Club stepped in you had to apply
to each separate company if you found a dog because
you might have the number but not the brand of chip;
some chip numbers had corresponding collar tags,
but you/your own vet could not necessarily read the
actual chip, 'cos they might not have the correct scanner.

Then the Animal Charities started injecting huge numbers
of chips for free or a subsidised fee. The tech improved,
we no longer got nearly so many of the moving ones ( see
eg Melba's post ^^^). Now we have a mish-mash, you can
get it done through commercial chippers or vets - still
at some cost ! - or if you have a rescue dog, are homeless,
or in some other circs you can get RSPCA or DogsTrust or
whoever to do it for less. The problems about updating
the info remain; practice varies as to whether you can put
more than one contact on your registration.

As to Melba's black ear, that is why different colour inks are
available - only a problem where the Tattooist doesn't use
other than dark green or black, like I said above some are
better at it than others ! With our scheme so many
different breeds were done, a bit of thought was applied.

Actually I always thought an engraved tag on the collar with
owners address or tel number was the best bet ! Address
& owner is still a legal requirement here, but is ignored as
much as it's practised.

Only expressing my own preference, along with trying to
explain some of the influences that applied as to WHY the
chips used to have such a bad Press. ; D

http://www.antichips.com/cancer/

Read the link, and all other URLs attached to the link. I will never Microchip.

TY fsh11 - interesting and maybe chilling.
IDK if there is any link with cancer, nor do I know how
much chance there really is of other bad suggestions around,
eg that people will physically dig a chip out of a dog in order
to steal a valuable animal or conversely erase a link between
the dog and themselves so some crime cannot be proved.

Something I do know however - heard from his own lips - is
that the guy who set up the UKs Tattoo Registry conducted
experiments around various radio and power sources and
managed to "wipe" several chips, in the early days. That may
explain some of the horrid cases where dogs could not get
back through Customs 'cos their chips could not be read !
Hopefully the manufacturers have sorted that problem out,
too.

Sorry -  double post.

I had a discussion with my vet just last week concerning micro chipping. He felt it was safe, but something he brought up (and might be better as a new thread) was the overall usefulness of the process in my particular situation. His point was that it is unlikely my dog would ever get lost. He felt that since she had no indications of running away from me, it was unlikely she would ever need to be identified other than the contact information available on her collar.

Hmm, maybe. It still seems like a good idea to me. Kind of worth it should a "worst case" scenario happen and she did somehow become lost. I believe the point he was trying to make is that it's not a type of locator, just an identifier. Sadly, in my part of the US, if my dog were to become lost or separated, it is more likely that anyone finding her would probably keep her. My vet hopes for technology advancement that would make GPS tracking more viable, both in costs and in miniaturization of the equipment- not necessarily to the level of injection, but at least more compact than the large collars currently available. Of course, there's nothing to keep someone from cutting a GPS collar off a dog if they were despicable enough to want to keep it.

I'd be curious to hear any thoughts on GPS equipment/technology for dogs...