To Microchip or not - The Decision is Yours
Statistics show that thousands of pets are lost each year. Most of us never expect to lose our pet and when the unexpected happens, most owners are caught by surprise and unprepared and owners are heartbroken at the loss of their pets. Taking a simple preventative action can prevent this problem from happening.
Enter the microchips, tiny devices that have been particularly useful in the return of lost pets. This is a permanent radio-frequency identification (RFID) chip is implanted under the pet's skin. Implantation is done using a hypodermic needle. The identification number stored in this tiny transponder cannot be lost, altered and intentionally removed.
A veterinarian as well as most animal shelters can do the procedure. Animal shelters provide the service for much less than a vet. It can be done in about thirty seconds and does not hurt pets. A microchip ID is a very, very small chip. In fact, it's just about the size of a grain of rice.
There are three companies that dominate the US market for pet microchips- AVID, HomeAgain and 24PetWatch The microchip manufacturer keep the chip numbers that you have purchased and all the necessary information in their databases to be able to traced you in the event that your pet gets lost.
A scanner sends a safe radio wave signal to the microchip and when the chip receives this signal, it sends data (the microchip number) back to the scanner to be displayed in a viewing window. There are small handheld scanners that have a reading range of about 3 inches. While larger, more powerful scanners that have reading ranges that vary from 6 to 20 inches can be used for various commercial and research applications.
Animal shelters and animal control officers have been educated and informed about microchip identification and how it functions. Shelters use industry-wide, cross-compatible scanners that read all chips operating at a certain frequency and once a microchip is located in an animal, the appropriate steps are then taken.
If you are traveling to a country in Europe and many other countries in the world, a microchip is considered mandatory as the immigration officers use it to compare the pet they are scanning to the veterinary documents you have presented. A microchip that meets ISO 11784 should be used, which is a 15-digit chip. However, China requires the 9-digit chip.
Though long-term research has been conducted and has shown that using microchips to track your pet is completely safe, there are still some owners who are against it. One issue reported that these microchips are the cause of Fibro Sarcomas in the animals that have been implanted.
But this doesn't really hamper dog and cat owners to have their pets microchipped. These electronic IDs offer a number of physical advantages over external tags. They are considered remarkably more reliable. The process is even quick and painless, similar to receiving a vaccination. The chip is permanent and can never be lost. The pet's identification number is unique in the world and the database can have the pet's pertinent history.
Microchips provide an important extra level of protection for you and your pets in the event that your worst nightmare happens- your pet gets lost. But before you do anything drastic or something you might regret later, weigh your options first.
Article Source: http://www.search-raven.com
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