Microchipping Your Cat or Dog
With a tiny microchip implant, you are more likely to reunite with your pet if it becomes lost. We care about your companion animals as much as you do. That’s why at Augusta Animal Clinic in Indianapolis, we encourage you to have a microchip put into your cat or dog. The simple, painless procedure helps both indoor and outdoor animals.
What is a Microchip and What Does It Do?
Microchips are radio frequency identification tags that our vet inserts under the skin. The chips do not require power, nor do they contain your personal information. Rather, when a local Indianapolis vet scans an animal for a microchip, he will find an identification number. This number refers to a database that contains the owner’s contact information, so the two can be reunited.
Only a special scanner can retrieve information from the microchip, and only vets and animal shelters have these. So, if you find a lost animal, take it to your local shelter or a vet to have it scanned for a chip. Doing so will be the first step toward helping another pet owner get his animal back. You’d want someone to do the same for you. But for this happy story to happy, you need to have a microchip implanted in your cat or dog, whether it’s an indoor or outdoor animal.
Importance of Microchips
Without a microchip, your cat or dog has a higher likelihood of never coming home if it strays away. If you have a cat without a microchip, the chances of finding it after it goes missing are only 1.8 percent. For dogs without microchips, the chances are slightly higher, at 21.9 percent. But for animals with microchips, the percentages raise considerably. Microchipped cats get reunited 38.5 percent of the time, and dogs with chips have over a 52 percent chance of getting back to their owners.
Microchips make a difference in these animals lives as well as the lives of their owners. To ensure you get the most out of the microchip, always update your information if anything changes, such as your phone number or address. Pets with microchips that don’t return home had owners with outdated information in the databases.
How Our Indianapolis Vet Implants a Microchip
The microchip implantation procedure is painless. The chip itself is about the size of a rice grain and is injected under the skin with a syringe in a quick process. Because your cat or dog only feels as much discomfort as it does for a regular shot. The vet does not need to administer any anesthesia for microchipping. But if your cat or dog is already undergoing surgery for spaying or neutering, our vet can implant the microchip at the same time.
