One out of three pets will go missing in their lifetime. A million animals enter shelters every year. Of that 40-60 % are pets lost from their homes and families. Many organizations exist to help owners and pets reunite, but the sad truth is without some form of reliable identification, most pets never find their way home.
How To Protect Your Pet
Collars are the traditional way to help get a pet back home. Identification, in the form of an engraved tag with the pet and owner’s names, home address and owner phone number or the same stitched into the collar, is the quickest way to get your family member back. Many good Samaritans are willing to run a pet back to its home, or at least give the owner a call. Unfortunately, a number of escaped pets will get out of their collar, especially cats that usually need a safe breakaway collar to prevent choking. 
An alternative way to attach identification to your pet is by microchipping. This involves inserting a microchip with a hypodermic needle under the skin. The chip is the size of a grain of rice. It comes embedded with a serial number and the phone number to the microchip company. Ninety-nine percent of adoption groups, rescue groups, animal control agencies and shelters, and veterinary hospitals have microchip scanners that can read this information from the chips. The scanner is passed over the animal’s body- typically the top of the neck or over the shoulder blades and displays the serial number and the microchip company number on a screen. Once the number is collected, the pet rescuer can call the microchip company to get owner information registered to that serial number. At this time microchips are not programmed with the individual animal information but arrive from the manufacturer with the number already imprinted on the chip. Also, the microchip is not a GPS scanner. It does not show an owner where the animal is. But, wherever the pet goes, it carries the link back to its owner under its skin.
Microchipping Your Pet at Pleasant Hill
At Pleasant Hill Animal Hospital, we recommend all animals get microchipped. It can be inserted while your pet is in for an office visit and will feel like a big pinch. Many owners elect to have the chip inserted when their pet is asleep, such as when they are spayed, neutered or sedated for other procedures. When the owner goes home, several copies of the serial number are sent home with the owner and the phone number/online registration site is given. Owners register their pet’s chip number with their own contact information (phone, address, e-mail).
If you are traveling out of the country let us know, so our staff can be sure your animal is microchipped with a chip that can be read anywhere in the world. These numbers are required for most international health certificates.
There are amazing stories of owners who are reunited from hours and days to months and even years after their pet escapes and even from distant states and countries. We want all your fur babies back safe at home where they belong.
Make an appointment so you can learn more about protecting your pet.