What is a Microchip?

What is a Microchip?

If your dog’s collar breaks or its collar tag falls off or becomes illegible, a microchip permanently identifies your pet to help your pet get back to you if it is lost or stolen.

A microchip is about the size of a grain of rice and is encoded with a unique ID number that will be assigned to your pet.  No two microchips have the same ID number.  The microchip is placed between your dog’s or cat’s shoulder blades under a veterinarian’s supervision. Implantation is quick, easy and virtually painless — similar to a vaccine injection — and can be performed during a regular clinic visit.

A microchip is not a tracking device. It can only be “turned on” for a few seconds at a time by a handheld microchip scanner that is passed over the area the microchip is implanted to read the microchip’s unique ID number.  Veterinarians and shelters have these scanners and use them to help lost pets all of the time.  Veterinarians also check pet’s microchips during annual wellness exams for a few different reasons.  First, to make sure all is working properly as secondly to start a conversation about whether your information is up to date on your pet’s microchip enrollment record.