This Saturday, August 15 is National Check the Chip Day. It’s a reminder to all of us that getting your cat microchipped isn’t the only step in the process in giving her a much higher chance of getting home. Cats have a 20 times higher chance of being returned to their owners after entering an animal shelter if they are microchipped.
Just having a microchip isn’t enough. You have to be that the chip is readable and that your information is up to date. That’s what Check the Chip today is to remind you about.
Get Chipped
If your cat isn’t already microchipped, getting her chipped is a simple procedure that can be done at your veterinarian’s office. Reduced-cost and sometimes even free microchips are available at events in your community. Microchips are implanted under the skin with a large-gauge needle, like getting a vaccination.
Get Registered and Keep Contact Information Current
Make sure your chip is registered, and keep it up to date if your contact information changes. New phone number? New address? Don’t just change the information with your friends. Update it with the microchip registration for your cat, too.
This is important because one of the leading causes of microchipped pets not being able to get home is not being able to find the current contact information for the pet’s home. If you get a microchip implanted in your kitty and then move across the country, your old vet who implanted it may lose touch with you. If your microchip isn’t registered, the last person the microchip company knew had the chip was your old vet. Keep your contact information up to date with the chip registry to be found when your pet needs you most.
Check the Chip
Check the chip! Microchips are implanted between the shoulder blades. When Ashton was a bony, little kitten, you could feel the chip, about the size of a big grain of rice, if you scritched her shoulders just right, just past the end of her neck at her shoulders.
In rare cases, a microchip can migrate. Pierre’s chip has migrated about two inches so it’s over his shoulder blade instead of between his shoulders. This is unusual enough that when our vet felt it, he let some of his vet techs feel it so that they would recognize a migrated chip if they felt one.
Chip migration doesn’t hurt your cat, but it does mean that if someone passes a microchip scanner over your pet’s shoulders, it might not be energized by the electromagnetic field produced by the scanner. This can lead to the microchip not being detected. To be sure this hasn’t happened, ask your veterinarian to scan for your cat’s chip as a part of their routine veterinary exam.
References and Further Reading
Ohio State University Research News, Microchips Result in High Rate of Return of Shelter Animals to Owners
Photo Credits:
Light Warrior, Wikimedia Commons
Joel Mills, Wikimedia Commons
Oscar111, Wikimedia Commons
That’s good advice about having the vet scan for the chip – I know mine moved around a lot for a while when I was a kitten. Funny enough, my human just got her renewal for my HomeAgain account. It’s not absolutely necessary for my chip to be read, but I do get benefits, and in fact, my human saved an ASPCA poison control fee when I ate a leaf off a jade plant because of our membership! So she is definitely renewing it.
Such good advice. My friend’s cat was missing for seven months and they were reunited only because he was chipped.
Our vet checks our micro chips every time we go to the vet – at least it’s not sore like a needle in your neck!!
Luv Hannah and Lucy xx xx
We never thought about checking the chip. Of course, we hafta get chipped first.
Mudpie is the first cat I’ve ever adopted that came chipped. The entire service is free for her lifetime, and any changes I would need to make are free for the first year. I need to go in and change the account to reflect her new name and a couple other things. That’s a great idea to have the vet check it each time!
Joanie and Sammy came chipped. Someday I would love to get everyone chipped.
great advice….it is so frustrating for rescues to get animals that HAVE a chip but no current information. BTW – Ivy’s chip is way over on her shoulder as well….anyone with experience checking should go side to side and front to back to just be sure 🙂
Do you believe I keep saying I am going to get Cody chipped and I STILL haven’t? UGH!! Dakota is chipped but not Cody. Bad Mama!
Thank you for the fantastic reminders! I’ve been meaning to check my kitties’ microchips. I’ll have the vet check them at our next visit in September.
Excellent advise!
grate post guys…when sauce & eye waz gotcha’ed…. a chip waz part oh R adoptshunz fee….we troo lee never thought bout gettin it checked tho ~~~~ ♥♥
Our mom made sure that we really are microchipped by asking the vet to check.
Great advice ! We’ll ask our vet to do it next time (..vet.. yuck !). Purrs
Great advice! Technology is only as good at the people who are using it. It would be heartbreaking for a cat to go missing. You at least want the safeguards you put in place to work as they are intended to work.
Interesting about the chip migration. I had my former kitties (years and years ago) chipped. I never did it with Lucy and Simba and haven’t done it for Annie and Pierrot either. Actually, I now wonder if Pierrot has a chip since he came from a shelter. I’ll have him scanned next time he goes to the vet. This is such a good reminder about remembering to keep it current!
That’s great info and likely something easy to forget!
Pawsum posty. What a gweat weminder. Mommy checks our info. offen even tho weez not changed anyfin’. She dusn’t twust pooters to not change fings on there own. Fanks fur da posty.
Luv ya’
Dezi and Lexi
This is important information to remember. We go to the vet in a couple of weeks and Mommy is going to have them checked.
I think we should get FISH with those chips, too!
This post reminded TW to send Pop the link so he could keep my chip from expiring. She also has to update my vet info since I don’t go to the vet who chipped me.
Great post, guys! Rocky’s migrated too after many years. Hopefully vets now know to scan all around the body and not just the shoulder blades. – Crepes.