An Animal Hospital Serving Maryland

Microchipping your pet is really just showing that you care about them. Let's face it, dogs and cats are descended from wild animals and from time to time our pets are placed between a rock and a hard spot. Stay put with you, the one who feeds and adores them or escape through the hole in the fence to a freedom that they possibly only dream of. The result? Lost dogs roaming our streets.

Unfortunately for them, All humans don't appreciate them as their owners do and want them gone. Local governments have built dog shelters with adopt a dog programs in place just to combat this issue. It's not really working. The shelters are always full of sad faced animals.

How can we do our part? A lost pet with a microchip stands a good chance of being reunited with its owner before that dreaded "humane euthanization" has to take place. (One day we'll write an article on exactly why there's nothing humane about that).

Why Microchip ID Our Pets?

So, we have agreed that microchipping is good, but what is it exactly?

A dog microchip is about the size of a grain of rice that is inserted under the skin of the animal. It's a part of most veterinary services packages. This microchip implant is encoded with some personal details of the pet and its owner and can be read with a special microchip scanner, without the need for removal. They last the lifetime of the pet.

What else can we do to prevent a pet from becoming a lost soul?

Well, the word wanderlust comes to mind. Animals are programmed to roam and locate mates to keep the population growing. Dog neutering and spaying goes a long way in calming this natural instinct. Along with the desire to mate is the instinct to fight in order to claim the right to mate. These procedures produce an added bonus of diminishing that desire to fight, end-result: a much calmer and better behaved animal.

A short list of additional measures To Prevent Lost Dogs

• A double barrier system at house and car doors and gates. This means to put the dog behind another barrier or on a leash before you open an exterior door
• Automatic door and gate closers. If you can't get kids to shut doors, put springs on the doors or other automatic closers so that it takes an adult to make the door stand open
• Monitor your gates in the yard so that someone doesn't accidentally let the dog out the back door into the yard when a gate is open. We own dogs and every trash pickup day we had a problem. Luckily, our dogs didn't go very far, even though they do have microchip implants
• Work on stopping them the first time around. Every time the dog gets out and has a good time running loose, the dog will want to do it that much more the next chance
• Keep a comfortable collar and current identification tag on your dog. Collars can cause accidents and even death by strangulation, so find the safest one you can
• When you first get a dog, immediately get a tag that has the correct contact information, better yet, get a tag as well as a microchip id. Microchipping is simply a more secure and reliable form of tag. Collars can be removed or often fall off. An rfid microchip doesn't fall out
• Tattoo your dog. Besides a microchip, an id tattoo is a good idea. Call attention to the microchip and/or tattoo with a collar tag to announce to everyone that the pet has a microchip
• Don't leave dogs outdoors unattended, especially during inclement weather or when noisy activities are taking place nearby. Fearful dogs will do anything to escape from a frightening event., even if it means scaling or jumping over a high fence.

You are accepting a responsibility when you opt to become a pet owner. You are saying that you will care for and provide a safe environment for that animal to live in. Pet microchipping is just one of the ways available to you to help you keep that promise.