Microchipping and Pet ID: Getting Your Pet Back

Losing an animal is a particular kind of awful, made worse by how much of the outcome is decided by preparation you either did or did not do months earlier.

Two things bring pets home, and they work in different ways. A collar tag is read instantly by anybody, and comes off easily. A microchip is permanent, and needs a scanner and a working phone number. Each covers the other's weakness, which is why the sensible answer is both.

What a microchip actually is

A small glass capsule, about the size of a grain of rice, implanted under the skin between the shoulder blades. It has no battery and no location tracking. It stores one number, and it does nothing at all until a scanner is passed over it.

That number is then looked up in a database, which is where your contact details are held. The chip itself contains no information about you.

It is worth being clear on this, because it is the most common misunderstanding: a microchip is not a tracker. It will not tell you where your dog is. It tells whoever finds your dog who you are.

The implanting

A needle slightly larger than a vaccination needle, one quick injection, no anaesthetic required. Most animals react about as much as they do to a vaccination, which is to say barely.

It can be done at any age from a few weeks old, and it is commonly done at the same time as a vaccination visit or under anaesthetic during neutering, which is convenient rather than necessary.

Registration is the part that matters

This is where the system fails, and it fails constantly.

An implanted chip that was never registered is a number that leads nowhere. A registered chip with a phone number from two years and one handset ago is the same thing. Every clinic has scanned a found animal, got a clean read, and reached a number that no longer connects.

1. Confirm the registration was completed, not just that the chip was implanted. Ask for the chip number and the name of the database, and keep both
2. Check your own details annually. Put it with something you already do each year, such as the booster visit
3. Update immediately when you move or change number. This is the single most valuable five minutes in this whole article
4. Add a second contact, a relative or a friend at a different number, so there is a fallback if you are unreachable or travelling
5. Transfer the registration when an animal changes hands. A rehomed dog registered to its previous owner will be returned to somebody who no longer has it

Have the chip checked once a year

Chips very occasionally migrate from the implant site, and very occasionally fail. Both are uncommon and both are worth knowing about before they matter rather than after.

Ask for a scan at the annual booster appointment. It takes seconds, it confirms the chip is still where it should be and still reading, and it is a reasonable thing to ask for without feeling you are being difficult.

Collar tags, which are underrated

A chip needs somebody to take the animal to a vet. A tag needs somebody to be able to read. In practice, most animals that come home quickly come home because a neighbour read a tag and rang a number.

• Put a phone number on it, and prefer that to the pet's name. The name helps a stranger handle the animal; the number is what gets it home
• Engraved rather than printed. Printed lettering wears off within months
• Check it every so often. Tags wear, split rings open, and a smooth blank disc is a common sight
• Use a quick-release collar for cats, which releases if it snags. A cat that catches a fixed collar on a fence can be seriously injured
• Do not rely on a collar alone. Collars come off, and they come off most reliably at exactly the moment an animal is panicking and running

Keep a record that is actually useful

What a search needs is not what most people have to hand.

• Clear, recent photographs from the side, from the front, and of any distinguishing marks. A photograph of your dog asleep in a dark room is no use on a poster
• The microchip number, written down somewhere other than only in a booklet in a drawer
• Your vet's details, since a finder may go there first
• Vaccination records, which matter if the animal is picked up by anybody official or ends up in a shelter
• Height, weight and any scars, which sound trivial and are what distinguishes your black dog from the several other black dogs reported that week

Our free lost pet plan is printable and gives you one page for all of it, filled in before you need it. Our pet health record is where the chip number and vaccination dates belong.

The first hour, if it happens

Most animals are found close to home and soon after. Speed and noise both help.

1. Search the immediate area first, calling normally rather than anxiously. A frightened animal responds better to an ordinary voice
2. Check inside the house and compound thoroughly. Cats especially are found in the house a remarkable proportion of the time, in a wardrobe, behind a machine, in a ceiling space, under a bed
3. Ask the immediate neighbours to check their compounds, garages and outbuildings. Cats get shut in
4. Tell your vet and every clinic nearby, with the chip number, because that is where a found animal is taken to be scanned
5. Post locally, on estate and neighbourhood groups, with a clear photograph, the area, and your number. Local reach matters far more than wide reach
6. Put paper up at gates, junctions, markets and security posts. Security personnel see everything and are frequently the ones who find animals
7. Leave familiar smells outside, bedding or a worn item, and food and water near the door. Cats that are hiding often come back to a familiar smell at night
8. Search again at dawn and dusk, when it is quiet and a hiding animal is more likely to move

If you find someone else's animal

Take it to any vet clinic and ask for a scan. It is free at most clinics, it takes seconds, and it is by far the fastest route home. Do not assume an animal without a collar is a stray.

Beyond getting home

A chip also settles ownership disputes, is required for export and for travel, is needed by most boarding kennels, and is what allows a clinic to treat an unconscious animal knowing its history. It quietly does a good deal more than reuniting.

Microchipping is one of the cheapest things you will ever do for an animal and one of the easiest to postpone, precisely because it protects against something that has not happened. It costs roughly what a bag of food costs, once, for the life of the animal, and the alternative cost is not financial at all.

Microchipping and the consultations around it are covered on Skeepy Pet HMO plans at any vet clinic in Nigeria, along with the annual scan to confirm it still reads, which is the check almost nobody thinks to ask for.