Did you know that one in every three pets goes missing at some point in their life? Yikes, right? If that’s not enough to make you, Mr. or Ms. Pet Owner, paranoid, there is a way you can reduce those odds.
Enter the microchip! Think of it like a mini-ID card, no bigger than a ladybug – a super-safe chip implanted under your pet’s skin at a routine vet appointment which holds a unique code that links back to your contact information in a big pet database. And if your pet ever goes AWOL and some kind soul takes them to a vet or a shelter, the people there can scan the chip and get you and your pet back together.
The pet owner has to do their part to make this work
But there is a catch. Actually a couple – and both rest solidly on the shoulders of the pet’s owner. If you don’t register that microchip, Fluffy or Kitty could wander around in the desert longer than Moses. And, if you do register it and then change your phone number and don’t inform the database folks, your chances of being reunited are slim to none as well.
If you assume that once your pet is microchipped, if your pet is lost, it will magically make its way home to them, your thinking couldn’t be farther from the truth. Only 42% of implanted microchips are properly registered to pet owners and the other 58% of pets have unlisted microchips with no owner information.
“The chip is only as good as my ability as a pet owner to keep my information up to date in the registry,” remarked Linda Lord, an assistant professor of veterinary preventive medicine at Ohio State University.
Despite microchip technology being almost flawless in its operation, one person in the pet chip industry says the pet microchip system is severely broken and most pet owners don’t even realize it.
How? Because there are more than 40 separate microchip databases, and they are NOT connected.
A cat goes astray
Let's take Catherine as an example. Check out what happened to her when she had her cat microchipped…
“I had my cat microchipped at a shelter. The shelter misspelled my name when they registered the microchip for me. I cannot change my name through 24PetWatch's website. I emailed them THREE TIMES with ZERO response. I can't make phone calls during their business hours due to my work and class schedules, and time zone differences. I had to register the microchip with another, totally free, totally transparent service,” she claimed in her ConsumerAffairs review of 24PetWatch,
“I should not have to do this. Having the microchip registered with more than one service with different information can cause major issues when a lost pet is found if the finder is not careful to determine which information is the most up to date.”
“We love our pets but just don’t have access to the technology we need to keep them safe,” says Olivia White, CEO/founder of Check the Chip, a startup company singlehandedly dedicated to fixing the problem.
“Until now, it has been a very deceiving system, and quite frankly very cruel to give pet owners a false sense of security. It’s not just about pet safety, but also about consumer rights and ethical business practices too," White told ConsumerAffairs.
"Safety shouldn't be confusing and we’re here to bring clarity and obvious, smart solutions. It’s like having 40 different registration databases for missing children but not connecting them, so parents and law enforcement are always getting very limited information. Can you imagine?”
What can pet owners do to assure that their pet’s microchip is registered?
If you get your pet microchipped and want to make sure that chip is registered with every single database, there’s two options that ConsumerAffairs found.
One, of course, would be White’s Check the Chip kiosks. The other is the American Animal Hospital Association’s (AAHA) online microchip lookup tool.
“The site will tell users that a microchip is registered with a specific database and list the registry number to call. And then you know you’ve got a hit,” Lord said. “This is an important development because it’s an easy-to-access, single place to find out where microchips are registered.”
While it’s a collaborative effort with microchip companies, it has two potential drawbacks that pet owners should be aware of: it doesn't reveal owner info or allow updates. Instead, it helps locate the registry where the pet's microchip is registered.
