Microchipping your pet is no panacea
The microchips now commonly implanted in pets may be reuniting a lot of pet owners with their stray dogs and cats, but misconceptions about how they work and competing technology have limited their effectiveness, the Chicago Tribune reports.
Microchips--devices about the size of a grain of rice that are implanted between a pet’s shoulder blades and can help trace an animal back to its owner--haven’t been a panacea. And generally, the problems lie not with the chips but with the pet owners, who often make wrong assumptions or fail to do what’s necessary to be reunited with a lost animal. In addition, competing products and technologies also leave cracks through which lost animals can fall.
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“Lack of identification is probably the most common cause of death for animals in this country,” said Dan Knox, a veterinarian and director of companion animal operations with AVID Identification Systems, the leading supplier of microchips. “And that microchip is that animal’s phone call home--if the information is current.”
Some animals that were found and scanned would languish in a shelter or be euthanized because their owners could not be reached.
Animal professionals say that while the technology is a huge step forward, as a backup, there's still nothing better than a good collar and tags.
-- Tony Barboza Photo: Iris Schneider/Los Angeles Times
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