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Why Microchips Don't Always Work

Thursday, December 20, 2007

pet microchipIt appears one reason why microchips don't always work is because shelters don't always scan!

An article in The Flint Journal says that the Genesee County Animal Control failed to scan a golden retriever, which could have ended up in the incinerator if a good samaritan hadn't intervened...
Gerhardt said his initial remarks were misunderstood but agreed Murphy was not checked for a microchip because he acted aggressively.

"Nothing says you have to scan," he said Monday, noting the state law only requires the shelter to attempt to identify animals through license tags.

On Wednesday, Gerhardt said the shelter actually scans most every incoming animal for microchips unless animals are especially difficult or aggressive.
I'm upset to hear that a shelter isn't doing everything it can to return a dog back to its owner. County shelters, and the employees who work there, are paid for by taxpayers. They have a duty to the taxpayers.

This is still the fault of the owner, relying on an invisible fence to contain a large dog, and then apparently not having a license tag hanging on the dog's collar.

Also, microchips are not a fail-safe measure.

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4 Comments:

  • Another concern with the microchips is that not all shelter facilities have the scanning device to check an animal for a microchip. Yes, they are not always reliable. Sad but true.

    By Anonymous Vesta, at 7:43 AM, December 21, 2007  

  • Even though Microchips do not always work correctly, I feel and know that more and more shelters are getting 3 scanners: one for Home Again, one for AVID, and Life on Pets. These are the three largest microchip companies in the world. Soon, vets and other places will only be microchiping the animals with one of three companies.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5:56 AM, December 28, 2007  

  • There really is no excuse for a shelter not to have the equipment to scan dogs for microchips, or to just not attempt to scan.

    The companies that microchip dogs, such as Avid and Home Again, provide these scanners FREE OF CHARGE to shelters and veterinary offices, and also replace them if they need to be replaced. All the shelters have to do is REQUEST them. As such, there is NO reason why a shelter should NOT have this equipment.

    There is zero reason why a shelter with the equipment at hand would not scan a dog. Reuniting lost dogs with their owners is one of the fundamental, basic functions of a county shelter.

    It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that most lost dogs will probably not be wearing a collar with tags. On one hand, many people do not keep tags on their dogs' collars because the "jingling bothers them" (or another stupid reason like that). On the other hand, even dogs that have collars with tags on all the time can easily slip them if they're loose and the collar gets caught on or tangled somewhere. It takes little trying for a frightened dog to pull its head backward out of the collar, and there go the tags.

    Microchipping is the only other reliable form of identifying a dog, besides collars and tags. Even tattooing, which is a valid form of identification, is not reliable because there is NO tattoo registry in the United States. It's nearly impossible to trace a dog based on its ear tattoo, made even harder by the fact that the AKC has no provisions of looking up a dog's tattoo, even if the dog is AKC registered and tattooed by a breeder.

    There are some issues with microchips, most of them with older chips that are known to migrate, which is why most shelters scan the dogs all over, not just in the most likely place for the chip to be located.

    Unfortunately, many shelters make no attempts to reunite dogs and owners ASAP. One of the reasons for this is that it's a revenue generator for the shelter. If they keep the dog and adopt it out, they make an average of $75 to $250 for adopting the animal. If they hold the pet for a long time and the owner finds it at the shelter, they will charge boarding fees, fees for not having tags on the animal, etc. If they just called HomeAgain and they notified the owner the same day, the shelter gets nothing.

    Sad, yes, but true.

    By Anonymous Abby K9, at 9:20 PM, December 28, 2007  

  • I was volunteering at a shelter once many years ago, and they had brochures out for microchipping, and when I asked about the scanner, none of the staff even knew where the scanner was. I couldn't believe they were advertising microchipping and didn't even know if they had a scanner or where it was!

    By Anonymous Kristen, at 7:50 PM, January 03, 2008  

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