May is National Chip Your Pet Month! If this is your first puppy, or if you’ve considered microchipping in the past but weren’t sure about its benefits, keep reading!
The Puppy Academy student, Scout!
A simple, safe, high-tech solution that can save your puppy!
May is National Chip Your Pet Month and as part of our mission to make puppyhood easy for all puppy parents, we wanted to spread awareness about microchipping to make puppyhood safe, too. The statistics are staggering, according to the American Humane Association, approximately ten million pets are lost or stolen every year. And one out of three pets in the United States are lost during their lifetime. With the addition of a microchip along with traditional collar tags, the percentages of found and returned dogs increased from twenty-two percent to over fifty! If you have been on the fence about microchipping your new puppy, read on to learn the facts and benefits!
What is a Microchip for Pets?
Just about the size of a grain of rice, a microchip is a small piece of computer technology that your veterinarian can implant into your puppy, generally between their shoulder blades. In it, you can store your best contact information, details about your puppy, and other important data to help locate and return your puppy to you in case they are ever lost. Each microchip comes with a unique code that you can register into a pet recovery database. Most veterinarians, rescues, shelters, animal hospitals, and police departments all have microchip readers. Once your puppy is recovered, they simply scan for a microchip, and all of your information will be available!
Is it Safe for My Puppy?
The Puppy Academy student, Milo!
It’s understandable that the idea of implanting something into your puppy is scary but microchips have been around since the eighties! The implanting procedure is fast, painless, and resembles getting a standard vaccine without requiring anesthesia. Vets will often opt to insert it during your pup's spay or neuter surgery so it doesn't bother them at all. While the risk of your puppy developing any infection or tumor in the implant area is extremely low, we always recommend that you discuss any procedure with your veterinarian to understand possible side effects however many vets do recommend new puppy owners to microchip!
Are Microchips Permanent?
The good news is, your puppy’s microchip should last their entire lifetime! It will be up to you to regularly update the information stored in the microchip. While in rare occasions, microchips have migrated to different locations in puppies’ bodies, ask your veterinarian to regularly scan for your puppy’s chip during their standard annual visits to ensure it’s in the right spot!
What are the Benefits of Microchipping?
Easily the best and most important benefit of microchipping is the peace of mind that if your puppy gets lost and found, someone can easily take your puppy to a vet’s office, police station, or shelter to get scanned. This dramatically increases the probability of your puppy being returned to you safe and sound! Additionally, you have the flexibility to update your information fast and easily with little wait time in between! Lastly, while a runaway situation is more probable than theft if at any point you report that your puppy has been stolen, a microchip will undeniably identify your puppy and that you are the rightful owner!
The Puppy Academy students, Charlee and Sully!
Don’t risk the chance of your puppy getting lost without having them microchipped! Along with this procedure, we also recommend that you maintain a collar and tags with updated information on your puppy at all times, especially outdoors or during off-leash situations! And lastly, train your puppy to have a strong recall! Proper training and proper identification will protect your puppy from being separated from you! If you know a new puppy owner, share this post to help more puppy owners get information about microchipping!
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