is it really worthwhile to microchip a dog? - Page 3

My guys are all microchipped and tattooed. 

When a stray dog or cat is brought into the shelter, the first thing we do after looking for tags is scan for a chip. When an animal isn't chipped, you can hear the groans, because we know the chances of reuniting that dog with his owner are lessened.

For those who do not know, most of your shelters, and Humane Societies will micro chip your dog or cat, at a nice reduced cost. Usually cheaper than your vet. Most shelters use Avid or Home Again. We just switched from Avid to Home Again, because of the recovery program and Alert that Home Again does. PLUS, they will register Avid chips as well.

Mine are all microchipped.  Had DNA done on Chaos too.  A friend of mine was on her way back from Texas about 3 years ago or so and when they stopped at a truck stop to eat, one of their GSDs jumped out of the trailer and took off after a rabbit or something.  They looked and looked for her for hours.  They stayed in the camper all night at the truck stop and she didn't come back.  They decided nothing they could do and headed home.  Once home, we all contacted every vet etc. in the Houstin area and they put alerts out to everyone they could think of incase Heidi was found.  Nothing.....  Either someone grabbed her up and didn't want to give her back, or she was hit by a car or something and died.  We contacted the police there and they did say that they had no reports of a GSD being hit on any of the highways there or any other road in the area for that matter.  So no, microchipping doesn't always work in my opinion.........

The dog first has to be found, then scanned for the chip to work.  Also, the pet needs to be registered in the database of whateverchip you are using.  Home agains new program they will actually send out an alert to all neighboring veterinarians saying that this pet is missing.  I'd much rather have that safe guard just in case something does happen.  If the pet ends up in a shelter they should scan it.  When scanning the pet, they do tell you to cover the entire pet.  I've found the chips in some weird places.  One was a chip that was done overseas and they implant the chip in a different place.  Supposedly the newer Home Again chips are not supposed to migrate.  So far, all of mine have stayed put. 

I just found out if I want to replace the plastic I.D. tag from homeagain this plastic tag is gonna cost me $6.00's.

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Oh well.

thank you everybody for your feedback. spunky was already tattoed when i got her, by her breeders the vom haus millers. that's one reason i didn't chip her. i read a thread on here recently about a dog that was tattooed but there seemed no way to trace who the owner was, and that made me think. so i will be chipping her at her annual vet visit coming up. my cat ashes is already done, and i plan to do our wandering tabbycat billy, just in case something happens to him. he has been on house arrest after he disappeared for 2 and a half months in the middle of winter. how he made it and stayed sleek and well-fed i would love to know, since he is wary of strangers when outside.

I think it is.  In my area our Animal control facility believes in it enough to offer chipping for just $6 and every couple of months they do it free for at least a month.  They even use a mobile vet vehicle and visit neighborhoods to do it free.  One note on that though, they do keep a record of the dog's they chip so to improve locating the owners.  That bothers some folks in my area that may be over the allowed number of pets for their city (I'm in the county and there' s no limit).

I do know of at least one case that recently happened in my area where they proved the ownership of a stolen dog by using the microchip identification.  The dog had been missing for about a year and the thief took it in to AC to get it microchipped without realizing the rightfull owner had already had the dog chipped.  When the AC worker scanned the dog, he found the second chip and checked the number, found a flag on the record of that the dog had been stolen and reported it.

Melissa