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Microchipping technologies have the potential to reunite millions of pets with their families. But the technology must be universally applicable for it to see widespread adoption. In the United States today, a microchip made by one company can't be read by a scanner designed to read the microchip of another. A veterinary clinic may not have the right scanner to detect an identification microchip implanted in a pet by an animal shelter just down the street.
In Europe and Canada, the animal welfare community already employs a scanner that can read all chips. And, consequently, the rate of pets returned to their owners is dramatically greater. For example, in the United Kingdom, where a scanner that can read all chips is in place, 47 percent of lost dogs are returned to their families -- that's more than twice the current rate of return in the United States!
U.S. pet owners may today be getting a false sense of security when they have their pet implanted with an identification microchip because there is currently no one scanner in this country that can read all chips. And that's not only an obstacle in getting lost microchipped pets home, but a further impediment in getting more families to choose microchip identification for their pets.
The newly formed Coalition for Reuniting Pets and Families is asking that chip and scanner manufacturers and marketers permit the use of a scanner that can read all microchips--and that such a scanner be made readily available to shelters, animal control officers and veterinarians throughout the country. |
