I recently got a news feed claiming that one of the largest microchip registries, Save This Life, went out of business, taking their registry with them. Frankly, I’ve never heard of Save This Life, but it makes the point that without a registry, a microchip is useless. But a registry is only one problem with microchips; there are many, many others.
I’ve always preached that a microchip should never be the primary identification for an animal. Here is why:
- Many microchip vendors leave it up to the pet owner to complete the registration process. Pet owners are the weakest link in pet ownership. When the owner fails to register their pet’s microchip, animal shelters depend on the vendor to give insight as to who purchased the microchip. Many veterinarians will sell microchips, but refuse to maintain records as to who they sold it to. Veterinarians fail to recognize that their client is the weakest link; they, in turn, are the second weakest link.
- Microchips operate on various technologies. As such, for years, it was nearly impossible to find microchip scanners that could read all of the microchips on the market. One manufacturer encrypted their chips so that scanners from other manufacturers could not read them. Even after the initial fallout and universal scanners became available, the scanners could not read all of the microchip frequencies at the same time. Each scan had to be performed slowly, so as to give the scanner time to scan through all of the various frequencies. It became quite easy to miss a microchip because a shelter worker scanned too quickly.
- Microchips are implanted in the shoulder area of an animal. Those scanning would know where to scan for the chip, but microchips have a bad habit of migrating. I once found a microchip in the front paw of a Great Dane. That microchip had migrated nearly 3 feet. Due to this migration and the complications with scanners, many shelters created protocols to scan an animal at least three times during its stay at the shelter. It would be scanned at intake, during its medical checkup, and then just prior to disposition. This was as foolproof as we could make it. And yet, it is far from perfect. The problem with microchips is that you never know that you have missed them.
Given that pet owners are the weakest link in pet ownership. Many communities changed from using tags for licensing and converted over to microchips. I’ve always believed that was a very bad idea. Having only a microchip as identification is very close to having no identification on the pet. But most shelters will tell you that most pets come into the shelter with no identification at all. So, a microchip, although a poor identification, is better than none at all. Animal Shelters would do well to record microchips in their own shelter database system.
In Jacksonville, Florida, I witnessed an incident in which one of our City Council members had microchipped her pet and came to believe that having a microchip took away any worry of her pet running loose. She had this notion that if her pet got loose, it would magically reappear in her yard. There was no need to look for her pet herself. Not everyone is this stupid, but you would be surprised at how many are.
The best identification is an ID tag. For this identification to work, the tag must be legible and on the pet. It should contain the owner’s name, address, and phone number. It is important that the phone number contains the area code (I’ll explain later).
The second-best identification is the pet’s license tag. As with the ID tag, it is only good if it is on the pet. The license also evidences that the pet is vaccinated for rabies. The people who issue these tags should also put their area code on them. I once had a dog come in with a license tag from Jefferson County. The tag failed to provide the area code or the state in which the license was issued. I discovered that there were over a dozen Jefferson Counties in the United States. I searched State by State, looking for the dog’s owners. In addition to the missing information, the tag had also expired. I discovered that many communities only keep the records for the current licensing period. After hours of searching, the tag proved to be worthless. I never found the owner.
At one point in my career, tattooing was a thing. The problem with tattoos is that the ink becomes obscured, and there has never been a good system to register them. It seems that we have come full circle since registration became the problem for microchips and government-issued tags.
So, you do everything right, and your pet is wearing a collar and tags. But, the first person who finds your pet has bad eyesight and removes the collar to get a better look, only to have the pet escape from them while they are holding the pet’s lifeline in their hands. This is why the microchip, all be it a poor form of pet identification, is there for us.
Dog owners would do well to ask their pet licensing provider to add their microchip information when licensing their pet. It wouldn’t hurt to make a note to review the information once a year to make sure the information remains correct. You would be surprised (or maybe you wouldn’t) that the major problem with microchip registrations is the failure of the pet owner (hint: the weakest link) to keep the microchip registration information current. I used to send letters to the last address on file, looking for the pet owner. The problem with that is that should the letter ever catch up with the owner, the pet’s stray holding time is long over. Animal shelters have to face the problem of keeping a pet in an overcrowded shelter in hopes of its owner eventually coming forward or placing the pet into a new home. It is common in our business that the owner will come forward months later after their pet has been adopted out.
My rule of thumb is that the law gives ownership of the pet to the animal shelter after the stray holding time. The shelter passes the ownership of the pet to the adopter. It isn’t the shelter’s right to try to take back the animal when its “previous owner” shows up. I leave that decision up to the new owner. If you agree with this philosophy, then in your next ordinances rewrite, you should make pet ownership information exempt from Freedom of Information Requests; otherwise, your adopters will be plagued with bullying from a previous owner. It will also save you from local vendors asking for a copy of your licensing data.
A smart shelter employee will document every attempt at scanning for a microchip. If you are unable to scan due to a broken scanner or a fractious animal, make sure you document that as well. One day, you will have a pet owner wanting to sue you for failure to promptly return their pet to you. Document everything that you do.
On intake, report whether the animal has a collar or lacks a collar. Each time you scan the animal document it. If you discover a microchip, record every attempt of attempting to reach the owner. Document phone call attempts, document letters that you mail out, and even document if the letter is returned. Do this because one day you might be in court describing to a judge what efforts you made to locate the owner.
I once discovered that I had five potential addresses for a suspected pet owner. I mailed letters to each address, and if one of the addressees contacted me to say that they weren’t the owner, I documented that. If the address is in your jurisdiction, send out an officer to leave a door hanger…. You got it, document that as well.
If you luck out and find the pet owner, give them a “drop dead date” (a deadline) by which they must appear at your shelter. You want them to know that you are unable to keep their animal indefinitely. If you have contacted the owner, always keep the animal a day or two beyond the date that you gave the owner. We live in a time in which people like to push their limits. It is better that you report that you kept the animal past the deadline when you are called before a judge. Also, bring a copy of the ordinance that gives you authority to dispose of stray/unwanted pets.
I have to be honest; I was never called into court over a pet ownership issue. But, because I documented everything, I slept better at night.