To microchip or not to microchip?

[stewartslucy]

We just had our almost 6 month old female, Nina spayed and microchipped last week.

We too, thought hard about both procedures.

We felt the benefits far outweighed the risks, when it came to the microchip.

She has escaped from our yard a few times, right under our noses. She squeezed herself under the privacy fence so fast!
Now we spent the weekend drilling boards into the bottom of the fence, so unless she digs a hole, or learns to climb a fence, there is no way out!

She also uses her ID tag as a chew toy. We are on our second tag. Almost ready for her third because she makes them unreadable!

Because of the tag chewing and bolting out of our yard, we felt this made her a prime candidate for the microchip.

Of course, I realize that bcuz she is so cute, and people know that this is an expensive dog, that if she goes lost & found, the finders may not opt to return her. However, we feel we have done everything in our power to make that happen if the finder were inclined to do so.

Lastly, we plan to visit Europe with her many times in the future to visit family we have living there. The European Union requires all visiting pets have the microchip.

[stewartslucy]

I should also add that there are no guarantees in life.

We spayed our last girl, only to have her die of cancer of the liver at age 11.
We took the best care possible for her, only to have something like that happen. We took her to the MSU oncology center and had 2 respected vets tell us there was nothing we could do for her.

So you can do one thing to avoid something, but then something else will mushroom up just as bad or worse.

We feel we are protecting our new girl to the best of our ability.

[mirobie]

It's true a microchip won't help if someone steals your dog or just doesn't want to return. But it is positive identification if you find your stolen dog and they refuse to return it. But should all my efforts not prevent me from losing her, and someone finds my baby who would keep and treat her well because they couldn't find me, I would mourn her forever, but I could live with that. But the security of knowing that if someone finds her and decides down the road that she is too much trouble and surrenders her to the shelter, the shelter will hopefully scan her and she could make her way back home at that point.

[For My Coby]

Originally Posted by mirobie

I had mine microchipped when she was spayed. She never gives any indication that she is aware of it, not even the day I brought her home from the vet. I hope it will be the best money ever wasted. But I am paranoid that I will lose her, especially when I read about all the yorkies being stolen.

Ditto!!