Pet Microchipping
In the United States, close to 20 million pets are subjected to euthanasia every year not due to disease or injury but because they are unidentifiable and are separated from owners. In order for your pet not to have a similar tragic ending, veterinarians today are allowed to microchip pets for identification.
A pet microchip is made up of a tiny coil and memory circuit enclosed in a glass that is biocompatible, or that kind of material in which the body does not recognize as foreign. It is tiny enough to fit inside a hypodermic syringe and injected by a veterinarian or any qualified technician. The pet microchip is implanted just under the skin below the neck – the process takes less than a minute and requires no anesthesia.
"Microchipping" is a permanent but safe way to pet identification. After the microchip's has been inserted, the serial number is registered in an international computer database. City pounds, animal shelters and hospitals are given access to this database and use scanners to detect the chips.
Veterinarians say the microchips don't bother animals. In fact, farmers were the first people to use this method of identification to tract stolen or lost livestock. Once implanted, the pet microchips are tamperproof – meaning, it does not disfigure.
Some contentions about microchipping are it a new innovation and people who are not aware of it may not take a lost animal to shelters or veterinarians for scanning. Moreover, there may be incidents of incompatibility between microchips and scanners – which mean some animals may not be scanned properly or considered unidentifiable.
Debate for pet microchips is gaining momentum and many are starting to believe it is a ploy by some covert government institutions as a precursor to "human microchipping". Although this might sound like a plot from a science fiction movie, some humane societies are not forgoing this possibility.
Activists are stressing and lobbying for a law to protect animal rights from being microchipped. They add that monitoring should be left only to merchandise and that biological monitoring is deemed inhumane and should be outlawed. A pet tracking microchip contains electronic code, which is what scanners read.
Pet microchipping is registered by the American and Canadian Kennel Clubs that both use the HomeAgain system. If you are not a member of any of these clubs, your pet may be registered online through the 24PetWatch Pet Recovery Network.
On the other hand, manufacturing of pet microchip is becoming prevalent with the manufacturers themselves providing scanners to institutions concerned. For families within the U.S. and Canada, who are moving or planning to move, may update their pet's microchips with the registry. This should answer common questions among pet owners like, "Updating my pets microchips."
Currently, there are two leading American suppliers for microchips namely: AVID and HomeAgain. Prices of pet microchip can range between $45 and $65 in some areas while some organizations offer them at lower costs. In addition to the price per microchip is a one-time registration fee for a pet that costs $17.50.
Although microchipping is not a new method of identification, the benefits and feasibility of pet microchips should be weighed. The American Humane Association said that only a tiny percentage of lost pets are able to find their way to their homes from animals shelters. Stray animals that are exposed to trauma and starvation, can pose life-threatening hazards and exhibit undesirable behaviors towards people.
If a pet microchip can help locate lost animals and send them back to their homes, then it should not be considered a nefarious act as some activists claim. On the other hand, activists do have a point about the issue of biological monitoring in pets because really, as they say, great things start from small ones. Let's all hope microchipping will never apply on humans.