One of the scariest experiences for a pet owner is having their cat or dog get loose and become lost. Microchipping is a service that our team at Kindness Family Pet Clinic in Forest Grove offers to help ensure that a lost pet gets returned quickly. This is a quick look at what microchipping is and some answers to many other questions you might have about this process.
What is microchipping?
Microchipping is what we call the process of inserting a scannable microchip underneath the skin of your pet. That microchip is about the size of a grain of rice and is a very basic type of electronic chip. The chip is encoded with is a unique registration number that is connected via a database to you.
How does microchipping help when my pet gets lost?
Should your pet ever become lost, a veterinarian or another professional will use a special scanner to search your pet for the microchip. Once scanned, the chip transmits its registration number to the veterinary staff. That person can then input the number into a database to find your name and contact information and get your lost pet back to you.
Is microchipping painful? Will my pet need to be sedated?
We understand that cats and dogs can be very sensitive to pain. However, for the vast majority of pets, the process of microchipping is fairly painless. We use a hypodermic needle that is only slightly larger than the ones we use for our other preventative care services. So if your cat or dog doesn't need to be anesthetized or otherwise subdued for their annual rabies shot, they won't need it for microchipping.
For more sensitive pets, our team can offer local anesthetics for the procedure even though they aren't necessary. You can also request to have microchipping done when your pet is under anesthesia for another medical procedure, such as when they are being spayed or neutered.
Does the microchip have GPS? Can it store medical data?
At this time, general microchips do not contain any type of GPS device and are not large enough to store any type of medical data. The only thing general microchips for cats and dogs store is the aforementioned registration number. This means that someone has to pick up your pet and have them scanned in order for the microchip to be effective at reuniting them.
If you do want something with GPS or similar tracking that can tell you exactly where your cat or dog is at any given time, there are specialty GPS collars on the market. There are also a few microchip registration databases that will allow the storage of your pet's medical information along with your contact information.
Get Your Pet Microchipped in Forest Grove
Call Kindness Family Pet Clinic at 503-359-9548 for more information about microchipping or to schedule your pet's visit.