Microchips Can Reunite You With Your Pets
May is Chip Your Pet Month! But while many have heard about microchips, there is a lot the general public doesn’t understand about them. So, for May’s blog, we’re sharing microchip facts and myths and answering some of the most common microchip questions.
What Is a Microchip?
Microchips can do a lot of things. They’re a significant component of computers and other technology, but for the purposes of your pets, microchips are small devices that store information about your pets.
How Do We Microchip Pets?
If you’ve never seen the pet chipping process, your first microchip questions may be about how we microchip your pets. It may even sound a little scary. Luckily, microchipping is a simple process that requires no surgery!
Microchips are so small, they can fit inside of a special needle. While larger than the type of needle we use to vaccinate or medicate your pets, a microchip injection is a fast procedure that requires no cutting.
The worst problem from microchipping is momentary discomfort, similar to that of getting blood drawn or receiving a syringe of medicine.
Where Do We Microchip Your Pet?
Typically, we insert the microchip beneath the skin between your pet’s shoulder blades.
How Do Microchips Work?
Microchips are simply information storage systems like thumb drives (or floppy disks, if you remember those), but much smaller.
Each microchip contains a number specific to the pet who has it. These numbers are one of a kind. And when typed into a database, it will pull up all available information including the animal’s name, sterilization status, owner’s status, address, and contact information.
Veterinary and shelter professionals use a chip reader to scan pets for chips. Generally speaking, most vet offices, humane societies, and shelters have them and will know how to use them.
You Must Keep Your Microchips Up-to-Date!
In today’s world, the average person moves over 10 times in a lifetime and changes their phone number who knows how often! If you do that, make sure you update the information in the microchip database.
If your pet gets loose and is scanned, the person scanning will have no way to contact you if the accurate information is not in the database. Don’t wait until your pet is lost to update it. Make it part of your moving or phone-changing checklist!
Microchip Myth: Tracking
Some people think that microchips can track your pet’s location, which can lead to people either thinking they’re more secure or less secure, depending on their point of view. For good or ill, microchips do not show your pet’s location, though the misconception makes sense.
Of course, the technology exists to use a trip to track a location. Everyone with a phone carries it around every day! But that technology is not ____ in the standard microchips in pets.
So, for anyone worried about their location being tracked, fear not. And for anyone hoping it can help them find their pet, you may want to look into a different technology. Many companies are using something similar for pet collars.
We’ll Chip Your Pet!
If your pet came from a local animal shelter, there’s a very good chance it’s microchipped! Let us scan it for you so you can learn its number and update its file. If your pet isn’t microchipped, Old Dominion Veterinary Clinic will be happy to be your Troutville and Roanoke source for chipping it!
It’s just one way we care for your pets’ health and well-being.
If you have other microchip questions, let us know and we’ll answer them for you!