Pet Microchips Aren’t Universal
By John Lowman
The Facts
Published October 15, 2007
Sherry Gray found her boxer, Ronni Kay, at the animal shelter.
To keep the year-old, energetic pup from finding her way there again, Gray had a microchip identifier placed just beneath the skin of Ronni’s neck.
“She was a stray when I got her,” Gray said. “She was lost once and now, if she gets lost again, she’ll be returned to the people who love her because she’s chipped. I’m glad I had it done.”
The procedure is gaining popularity among pet owners and veterinarians. While animal professionals agree pet microchipping is a good idea, not all implants are yet readable on all equipment.
Chip scoop
Pet microchips are used to identify a pet, give veterinarians information on an animal’s medical history and tell where a lost pet belongs. The chips — about a half-inch long and a few centimeters wide — are implanted between a dog or cat’s shoulder blades.
The procedure takes about as long as administering a shot and causes about the same discomfort, said Christian Ramsey, executive director of the Southern Brazoria County Animal Shelter. The cost ranges from $15 for a pet adopted at the shelter to $22.50 for walk-ins, and from $30 to $60 at a veterinary clinic implanting a fully registered chip. In some cases, there’s an annual registration fee, Angleton veterinarian Sherry Dodson said.
The two most-common brands — AVID and Home Again — are compatible with area SPCA and veterinary office readers.
Overall, chips are worth the price for the peace of mind they can bring, Ramsey said.
“Not enough people do it,” he said. “Chipping makes it so easy to contact the owner. It takes the process from sometimes days to hours, and who wants their pet sitting around in an animal shelter for days?”
While collars and tags still are required in most cities, they don’t always guarantee a pet will be brought home.
“A lot of people are under the misconception if a dog or cat has a collar, that’s going to be enough,” Ramsey said. “At least a couple of times per week, someone looking for their pet will come in and say, ‘The last time we saw him, he had on his collar.’ By the time he got here, he didn’t. The microchip is much more reliable and we wish more people would do it.”
But they should stick to the more common brands until some sort of standardization is done, Dodson said. A brand newer to the market, the Bayer Tracer Animal Coder system, isn’t compatible with many readers currently used by pet-care professionals, Dodson and Ramsey agreed.
“Any chip is better than no chip, but for now, I recommend AVID or Home Again since they’ve been on the market longer and there are more readers,” Dodson said. “You want the highest likelihood of a shelter or city having a scanner that reads your chip. Not that they’re better than anything else, just more common.”
Informed readers
American business competition has led to the variation in readers, and Bayer information states the company will make readers available to clinics and shelters. So far, that process is not completed, Dodson said. When a vet or shelter implants a chip, they generally have a reader for it.
Without the ability to use one scanner for all types of microchips, shelter staff would have to scan the animal — which could be fearful and difficult to handle — multiple times with each manufacturer’s scanner. Additionally, some companies provide their scanners free to shelters, but not all do. Without sufficient numbers of free scanners available to equip all animal control vehicles as well as shelters, microchipped animals could go unscanned by agencies that can’t afford to purchase multiple scanners from multiple manufacturers.
Pet microchips implanted in Europe already are universally read, according to information on the Pettravel.com Web site. Until late 2003, there was a universal scanner to read all the chips implanted in the United States, but companies began selling chips with a new technology not readable by the old universal scanner.
To date, no microchip manufacturer has provided a universal scanner to read all currently available microchips, according to the U.S. Humane Society. The technology is available, but companies manufacturing microchips have not agreed to share technology.
The issue likely will be taken up by federal lawmakers soon, Dodson said.
“Standardization is coming, and that will be great,” she said. “Down the road, you’ll see microchipping in horses, cattle, livestock — anything that can be moved or spread disease will be chipped.”
Added security
Domestic pets still should wear collars and tags, but adding a microchip is another level of security for animals and owners, Ramsey said. Until standardization is done, owners should stick with what they know or the recommendation of their vets, Ramsey said.
“I hear people say all the time, ‘My cat or dog never goes out,’ but it just takes once,” Ramsey said. “One open door or unlocked gate … they’re animals, and they follow their instincts. It takes one chance for that animal to get away, and you have just a lost pet.”
