I have looked into microchipping many times over the years here and even the websites of the microchip manufacturers only list a couple places with scanners, which made me wonder if it would be effective here at all...and what the best ID methods might be for my fur babies.
When two Boxers appeared in my kitchen on a holiday weekend in the late '90's, we found out they were microchipped when we called the phone number on the ID tags on their collars. Because the number was a South Florida phone number, we thought they got lost from a vacationer/traveler, and expected a voice message machine to answer...hoping the vacationer was checking messages remotely...and left a message to that effect.
What actually happened was the owner we called had sold the dogs to a neighbor several streets away that we didn't know and he called the dog sitter after we called him. The current microchip registered owners were on an ocean cruise when the dogs tunneled under the fence to visit us but the dog sitter had put the old collars on the dogs...not their new collars...which did not have ID tags...and that gave us a way to get them home again.
Microchipping and scanners were common where the original owner lived, but we would never have known they were chipped or where to have them scanned. The original owner had them chipped
because of where he lived, but he also had physical ID tag collars, which went with the dogs when he sold them.
Not to say anything bad about microchipping because it has its place and effectiveness...especially to prove ownership for a stolen pet...a
huge worry, but, in the Boxers' case, as well as in Bengi's case, the phone number collar was sufficient, could be read by anyone any time, and microchip would not have been better. Makes a serious case for multiple identification methods, especially if you travel into an area where you don't really know what sources of identification might be available if your fur baby gets lost.
Whatever we do should be designed so we get our babies back if anything goes wrong...and you actually did a perfect thing in Bengi's case with the cell phone number on his collar. I am so happy he found his way back to you and I so hope nothing ever goes wrong again!
