How Microchipping Your Pet Helps

One of the worst situations that you can find yourself in is being lost. You feel vulnerable and unsafe, scared of what might happen, or what you may stumble upon. Terrified that you may not find your way home. 

Now try imagining your sweet, loving Fido wandering too far away and not being able to find his way home. He doesn’t have a cell phone to be able to contact you, and he can’t talk to other humans to tell them where he’s from. How would he get home? 

Microchipping your pet is one of the safest and most effective ways to ensure that Fido is able to make his way home. However, you must do your part as well by registering your contact information with a trusted registry, such as BuddyID’s Pet Registry database or HomeAgain’s National Pet Recovery database. This will ensure that, if Fido does go wandering off, whoever finds him will be able to get in contact with you almost immediately. 

We receive many calls every day of pets that have been found, but the microchip has not yet been registered. Of course, we collect the microchip information and contact the individual we sold the chip to. However, we have had many instances where we are unable to get in touch with the customer, whether it’s due to lack of information provided at the point of purchase or the contact information in our system is outdated. It is extremely important that you keep your contact information up-to-date to ensure that your companion makes his way back to your arms in the terrifying case that he does get lost.

Steps to take:

1. Make an appointment with your veterinarian for microchipping if your pet isn’t already microchipped (then make sure that your pet’s chip is immediately registered).
2. Check your already-microchipped pet’s registration information in the microchip manufacturer’s database, and make sure it’s up-to-date.

Updating your pet’s microchip registration

To update your pet’s registration, you’ll need your pet’s microchip number. If you haven’t already created an account with the manufacturer, you’ll need to do that as well so you can access the registration in the future to update the information. Make sure that all of the information, particularly your phone number(s) and address, is correct.

There are many databases that allow you to register your pet’s microchip, but the one that really counts – the one that animal shelters and veterinarians will search – is the database maintained by the manufacturer of your pet’s microchip. AAHA’s Universal Pet Microchip Lookup Tool is linked to the registries of the majority of microchip manufacturers and allows a quick database search of any microchip made by these manufacturers. In addition, a number of public microchip registries have also been linked to the AAHA Universal Pet Microchip Lookup Tool to make it easier to find a microchip’s registration.

Per the American Veterinary Medical Association's website.