The Critical Importance of Microchipping Your Pet

Taking care of a pet isn’t so different from caring for a child. Your dog or cat relies upon you entirely for food, water, shelter, protection, and love, just like your child. If you take your toddler to the grocery store and lose track of his whereabouts, you’ll undoubtedly become frightened and panicked until he is found. When your dog or cat takes off through the open door and runs out of your sight, you can’t exactly rely on the grocery store staff and announcement system for help. If your pet is microchipped, you know you have a handy way to locate him and bring him back home safely.

What is Microchipping?

A microchip is tiny, about the size of a grain of rice, and is implanted in your pet’s skin to help track his location if he gets lost. It’s essentially a computer chip with a unique identification number that doesn’t risk falling off like a collar. All that’s needed is a scanner to pick up the radio signals that transmit the encoded chip ID number. Once the ID number is picked up, it can be used to track down the animal’s owner.

The Benefits of Microchipping

The benefits of microchipping your pet are hard to deny! First of all, collars can break or slide off, so you cannot rely solely on a collar to find your pet if he runs away. Microchips are injected into the skin like a vaccine and are meant to last 25 years, so it’s a permanent and protected form of identification. In addition, microchipping greatly increases the odds that an animal shelter or kind family can succeed in locating you when your pet is lost. It’s as simple as reading the chip with a scanner and locating your phone number in the system.

Your local vet most likely offers convenient microchipping services at an affordable price, so why wait another day to keep your dog or cat protected?