The Importance of Microchipping and ID Tags
A screen door left open. A gate a landscaper forgot to latch. A storm, a firework, a moving truck. Pets do not get lost because their owners are careless. They get lost because one ordinary thing goes wrong on an ordinary day.
Microchipping and ID tags are the two things that decide what happens next. One works when a neighbor finds your dog. The other works when a shelter does. This post covers why you want both, the registration step most people skip, and how to check yours in under five minutes.
What a microchip is, and what it is not
A microchip is a small transponder, about the size of a grain of rice, placed under the skin between the shoulder blades. It carries a number. That is all it carries.
It is not a GPS tracker. And it does not tell you where your pet is. It does nothing until someone scans it, and then it produces a number that has to be looked up in a registry.
That last part is where the system succeeds or fails, and it is the part almost nobody thinks about.
The number that should change how you feel about this
Research led by Linda Lord at Ohio State University, published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association in 2009, tracked what happened to microchipped animals arriving at shelters.
Microchipped dogs were returned to their owners at more than twice the rate of stray dogs overall. For cats the difference was dramatic: microchipped cats went home at about twenty times the rate of stray cats generally. Across all microchipped animals in the study, owners were found roughly 73 percent of the time.
Now the harder finding. When shelters could not reach an owner despite a chip, the reasons were almost entirely about paperwork:
- 35.4 percent had an incorrect or disconnected phone number
- 24.3 percent never responded to calls or letters
- 17.2 percent had a chip registered in a different database than the one searched
- 9.8 percent had a chip that was never registered at all
Read that list again. Those are not technology failures. Those are people who did everything right except the last step.
As Lord put it, the chip is only as good as the owner’s ability to keep the registry information current.
Why you still need a collar and tag
A microchip requires a scanner, and scanners live at shelters and veterinary clinics. A tag requires a pair of eyes.
Most lost pets are found by a neighbor within a few blocks of home. That neighbor does not have a scanner. If your dog is wearing a tag with a working phone number, your dog is home in twenty minutes and never enters the shelter system at all.
What belongs on the tag:
- Your pet’s name, optional and a matter of preference
- Your current cell number, which matters more than anything else
- A second phone number if you have one
- The word “microchipped” so a finder knows to get the pet scanned
- Your city, if you want, though a full home address is not necessary
What belongs on the collar:
- A rabies tag, which many counties can trace back to your veterinarian
- A county license tag where required
- A breakaway collar for cats, so it releases if it catches on something
Cats need this as much as dogs do, and indoor cats need it most. An indoor cat who slips out has no street sense, no scent trail home, and no tag, because nobody expected her to leave.
Check yours in five minutes
Do this today. It costs nothing.
- Find your chip number. It is on your adoption paperwork, your vet records, or in your vet’s file. Call and ask if you cannot find it.
- Look up which registry holds it. The American Animal Hospital Association runs a free universal lookup tool that tells you which database a chip number is in.
- Log in and check your contact details. Phone number, email, address. If you have changed carriers, moved, or switched email since you registered, assume it is wrong.
- Add a second contact. A family member or friend who would answer if you were unreachable, such as during an evacuation.
- Read the tag on your pet’s collar right now. If the number on it is a phone you no longer use, replace the tag this week.
- Take a current photo. Full body and a clear face shot, dated. Lost pet posts need it, and so do shelters.
If your pet is not chipped yet, ask your veterinarian, or watch for low-cost chip clinics run by county animal services and local rescues.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a microchip track my pet’s location?
No. A microchip stores an identification number and does nothing on its own. It only works when someone scans the animal and looks the number up in a registry. If you want location tracking, that is a separate GPS collar device.
How much does microchipping cost?
It is typically a one-time fee at a veterinary clinic, and many shelters include it in the adoption fee. Low-cost clinics run by county animal services and rescue groups often offer it for less. Registration itself is usually free or a small one-time charge.
My pet is already chipped. Is there anything left to do?
Yes, and it is the step most people miss. Confirm the chip is registered, confirm it is in a database you can log into, and confirm your phone number is current. A registered chip with a disconnected number is the single most common reason a chipped pet is not reunited.
Do indoor cats need microchipping and ID tags?
Yes. Indoor cats are the least prepared to be outside and the least likely to be wearing identification, which is a bad combination. Use a breakaway collar with a tag, and keep the chip registration current.
Five minutes today, or weeks of searching later
Every shelter has a room of animals whose families are looking for them right now and cannot be found. Most of those animals were loved. Some of them were chipped.
Check your registration today, then send this to one person whose dog or cat you have met. If AACT is running a chip clinic or supply drive this season, join us there.
Microchips do work. I see a lot of cases that made a huge difference between an animal shelter and the home where pet was lost from. The tags are your first security blanket, but they may be lost. Microchips can identify the lost pet.
My kittie is microchipped. It is peace of mind for me.
It is so relevant not only to the season we live in, but also in general. Our pets need security to be protected, and tags and microchips add to such security.