When microchipping doesn’t work

It’s easy to check whether a dog is microchipped.   You just run the scanner over him and hey presto, it will beep and there you are – the number comes up on the screen.   Where does that get us though?    None of the stray dogs in over the Christmas period have been claimed because of their microchips.    There’s no doubting the usefulness of the microchip when the owners want to find their pets, we ring them and it’s heartfelt relief.   But many of the dogs who come in here as strays have a microchip but no one at the other end who will say ‘yes, that’s my dog.’

We checked over a young dog who came in yesterday, he’s still a puppy and he is microchipped.    Hopefully we scanned him, the gadget beeped and we checked the number.    No luck though, in this case the microchip isn’t registered to anyone so there’s no chance at present of re-uniting him with his owners.   Do they want him back?   Has he been abandoned?   Or is there someone out there searching frantically for him and not realising that you have to give the microchip company your details.   Please check this is done when you have your pet chipped – some microchip providers do it automatically, others leave it for you to do.    If it’s the latter and you forget, it will only be luck if you find your pet again.

Please donate to help us to keep going if you can, we have a desperate lack of funds and with so many dogs in at present we are  really struggling.  [donate]