Jump to content
BC Boards

Micro Chip / Tatoo


Micro Chip  

33 members have voted

  1. 1. Micro Chip Which One do you prefer

    • Avid
      15
    • Home again
      13
    • other
      6
    • tatoo
      6


Recommended Posts

I got both Belle and Watson microchipped at the vet's office, while they were there for their spay and neuter. Avid is the company my vet uses. The chip and prepaid registration was $40 for Watson. Don't remember whether it was the same or less for Belle.

 

Doctor fills out the form with his information, you fill out your part of it, send it in and Avid will send you a verification letter that they received it. You've got a certain length of time to request they fix any typographical errors (vets don't write any better than people doctors!) and it's done.

 

I know for a fact that one of the first things my local animal shelter does when finding a stray animal is scan them for a microchip.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I got Lexi microchipped a few months ago. I think it was about $40. I prefer this over tattoos, it's just so easy and quick. Mine is also Avid.

 

When I was a kid we had an Australian cattle dog who was given away to someone on a farm (we lived in the city and my parents didn't understand herding dogs). A few months later we got a call from animal control who'd found him (via his microchip, which the new owner hadn't updated) wandering along the interstate highway. It was a good thing we had that microchip - he made it back okay! :rolleyes:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jin has an Avid chip. His breeder had it put in. I haven't heard of Home Again or any of the others. Abby is not chipped but then again she never wanders out of site even when the gates are open.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fergie is chipped through HomeAgain because that is what her vet did. Maggie (the cat) is chipped through 24PetWatch because that is what the rescue used.

 

I prefer the chip to a tattoo because it seems less painful. But that's just my gut feeling - having had neither done to me.

 

And thanks for starting this thread. It made me realize I have to contact both agencies and change some of the information. My daughter, our local alternate contact, has just moved from Umstead State Park to Eno River State Park where her husband is the new superintendent.

 

So, everyone in the area, please go to the Festival for the Eno next week-end. And go play in the park!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Three of my 4 are chipped with 24PetWatch through our humane society. I like their chips because updating is as easy as call the shelter and the service is completely free. Maggie has a Home Again chip, but got it a long time ago (6 years?) so we don't have to pay anything, unlike the current set up for the HA chips.

 

Our humane society offers microchipping for $20, no appointment needed. At shot clinics the price is dropped to $10. If we did it through our vet it'd run about $40-50.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Most of mine are both chipped and tattooed. You can chip yourself--Jeffers Pets sells Home Again chips and the kit includes the needle to insert it with. It's a huge needle, so if you're not comfortable with giving injections with a regular needle, you probably won't want to try to chip a dog yourself.

 

My dogs have either Home Again or Avid chips, depending on where and when they had the chips done.

 

Most of my dogs are also tattooed. Where I used to live, many of the AC officers did not have access to chip readers, so the tattoos were a backup to the chips. IMO, it's much more difficult to miss a tattoo than it is to miss (or not check for) a microchip. Since I live in a state where AC is allowed (don't know if it's still the case) to sell dogs for research, I wanted an obvious indicator that the dog was owned by someone. Fortunately I've never had to test out that theory....

 

J.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Its hard to believe out of 180 or so people that have looked at this post only 18 have a chip in their dog? I had Taffy chipped today at a cost of $39.00. Seems like cheap insurance.

 

I have three dogs. I had Gyp microchipped at just over a year. He is now 10.

Gil was microchipped by the breeder before I got him and he is just over a year now.

Snap has 2 chips. One is an old Home Again that was put in about 11 years ago. The other is what is referred to as an international chip. It is a couple of years old. The reason for the second chip is the older chip would not read on a new universal scanner. Apparently the technoligy changed somewhere between 1998 and 2000. She is 13

 

So far I haven't needed them, but a little terrier mix followed my husband home from his run and the only ID he had was his chip. It got him home.

 

Jenny

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm one of the 180 who didn't vote. Because I don't have a preference in microchips. I have what the vets involved used. Neither the dog nor the cat has ever been missing - touch wood - so far. So I have no data by which to have a preference.

 

Maybe a lot of people are reading this thread to make a decision. They, also, would not have a preference.

 

Also, the chip in my cat is not even one of the choices.

 

Perhaps a better question would have been chips vs tattoos? Or a general question about experiences with whaterver chips and tattoos?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Its hard to believe out of 180 or so people that have looked at this post only 18 have a chip in their dog? I had Taffy chipped today at a cost of $39.00. Seems like cheap insurance.

 

That only means 18 people with chips answered.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That only means 18 people with chips answered.

 

I agree.

 

Both of mine are chipped from 24hourpetwatch. The rescue did it before I adopted them. The chip is also set up with emergency care for 19.95 a year. If they are lost, injured and taken to a vet, the chip is an unwritten approval for vet care up to $5000. So no worries of suffering in pain for days if no one can find me and no delay in care because the vet thinks they are strays.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 of my dogs are Avid (1 came that way from shelter, 2 I had chipped at vet), $40 each at vet.

1 of my dogs is HomeAgain (he came that way from the rescue, but chip was inserted from shelter where he was originally from).

My 2 cats are both chipped with Avid from the shelter but I had it done through a Petsmart promo-program and was only $10 each.

 

I'm not into doing tattoos.

 

I can't say which is best because I've never had to use any services. *cross-fingers*

 

Also your question was which do you like best. I don't have a best because like I said, I haven't used it, so I didn't vote. If you asked which chips are in your dogs, you might have more responses.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As I noted, I use both chips and tattoos, and the chips my dogs have are either Avid or HomeAgain. I thought the polls didn't allow multiple choices, but I see they do, so I've added my information to the poll. But of course the poll doesn't give a complete preference picture, because I use both tattoos and chips for each dog, which means I really don't have a preference of one over the other.

 

J.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Kristen,

It's my SSN, which now probably wouldn't be the best choice, though I guess if you've got my dog and want to steal my identity, well.... My thought at the time was that it's a unique identifier, but I imagine if someone found my dog, they'd have to do something like call the police to track me down. But like I said, it was mainly meant to be a deterrent for the dogs to be sold into research. I've also thought about just using microchip numbers, but that's really long and there's only so much space on an inner thigh. My dogs also have collars with nameplates, so really the tattoos end up just being redundancy for peace of mind. I figure they at least make it clear the dog belongs to someone who cared enough about them to try to put ID on them.

 

J.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Its hard to believe out of 180 or so people that have looked at this post only 18 have a chip in their dog?

 

 

Why do you think that? Have you searched the archives and seen the other threads that relate to the same topic? All my dogs are chipped, AVID. I had been doing both, chip & tattoo, but can't find a good person to do the tattoo on the new dogs and I am NOT doing that myself :rolleyes: They were previously tattooed and registered with Tattoo A Pet, so their number was a sequential one as part of the registration.

 

ETA - there are 19 posts to this topic yet 27 "votes" tells me some are voting as you asked via the poll and not responding maybe due to redundancy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Can you tell me about tattooing? My daughter is a tattoo artist and does a great job, somehow I can't see her doing it without a big fuss being made by the dogs. That and she's not a dog person.

Who do you contact to do tattoos?

I'm getting the lgd's chipped this week. The shelter does it for $20.00. I'll have to take one in at a time but it's close. The vet clinic that had Sam said that's the first thing they do with a stray, same with the local shelter. Same with most shelters that i've spoken to.

 

I did hear a while back that home again was not as good as avid because the scanners can only read their own chips and avid reads both. Not sure if that's the same anymore.

 

I have most of my BC's chipped by avid. Raven isn't chipped cause she never leaves my sight but last years little episode when she went missing brought a whole new light to that. She wouldn't have let herself be caught anyways. But the just in case has presented it's self to me 2x's in the last year. Scary. I probably still won't have Raven chipped as I promised her I'd never leave her again and I'm stickin to it.

Or at least she'll be home with DH if I do.

 

I'm considering having the LGD's tattooed but not sure what to put on them. I don't want to do my ss# and I thought of my cell but you never know what circumstances will be. Maybe we'll lose everything and have to turn cell phones off. So I just don't know.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree.

 

Both of mine are chipped from 24hourpetwatch. The rescue did it before I adopted them. The chip is also set up with emergency care for 19.95 a year. If they are lost, injured and taken to a vet, the chip is an unwritten approval for vet care up to $5000. So no worries of suffering in pain for days if no one can find me and no delay in care because the vet thinks they are strays.

 

I wish I would have read this before I got Taffy chipped. This seems to be the best I have heard of yet. I guess I could of should of posted it differant. I wonder if you can get the emergency care with the others chips?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Kristen,

This won't be any help to you, but there is a couple in the Richmond, VA, area, the Mantlos, who do a lot of the tattooing around here, or at least used to. They use a tattoo pen and basically just write whatever you want where you want it. Some of my dogs have had the tattoos for 5 years or so and they are still quite visible (in one case, I had one number fade, probably because of interference from hair, but at the next event they were working, I had them fix it, for free). Not one of the dogs ever reacted to the actual process of being tattooed. I chose the inner thigh as the tattoo point because you can't exactly remove and inner thigh like you can an ear if you want to dispose of any evidence of a tattoo.

 

J.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Can you tell me about tattooing? My daughter is a tattoo artist and does a great job, somehow I can't see her doing it without a big fuss being made by the dogs. That and she's not a dog person.

Who do you contact to do tattoos?

 

Kristen, mine are tattooed. I'll email you the name of the woman who did it for my dogs. She's in Denver, but she travels to dog shows with her equipment, so she may be out your way sometime soon.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...