Keeping identification on your cat or dog is important whether they stay indoors or go out. While staying indoors is proven to be the safest environment, there are risks anywhere in life. Cats can easily sneak out without being noticed, a visitor could scare one and make her run out, hired helpers for vacations could let one escape, and even a neighbor, watching your dog for a few days, could let him escape. It's happened many times, as most shelter workers can attest.
In any case, no matter how a pet might find itself outdoors in a dangerous location or situation, it's best to ensure there is some identification on him.
Chip or Tag?
A collar and tag are by far the best form of ID, despite the fact that a collar can be broken or slipped out of. If the collar and tag are still on when the pet is found (which they usually are), it's a pretty sure bet that she will be returned. There is a saying among rescue workers that 95% of pets with ID are returned, while 95% with no ID are not. A very loose "statistic," but apropos to the typical outcome.
Microchips are permanent, but not everyone thinks to scan a pet for one. Recently, someone was just reunited with their lost dog. He had been missing for 5 years when a shelter got hold of him and did a routine scan, found the chip and the owners, and he got to go home. However, this is less common than never knowing what happened to a pet, or discovering later that your cat or dog was euthanized when their time was up at the pound.
Possibly the best approach is to use both, with a breakaway collar for safety. Another tip, especially for dogs, is to wear two collars: one with the rabies tag on it, the other with a name and address (or phone number) tag. Dogs can slip out of a collar, too, but rarely do they lose both of them.
It's also well known that pets who stray and are reported to local police or animal control will be taken to a city facility... the "pound." Many people are unwilling to call these people, knowing that the pet's fate is uncertain at best, since pounds usually have something like a three day limit to be reclaimed and are then euthanized. Not only that, but owners who do recover their pets are made to pay a fine.
The pet-owning "fraternity" tends to stick together to protect each other and thus will do anything they can to find the owner without involving the authorities. Since the average person does not own a chip scanner, the ID tag is all the more important.
Microchip technology
Early on, as several companies vied for market share, chips (and scanners to read them) were produced with proprietary technologies, that is, a particular company's scanner would read only the chips they manufactured. Now there is some commonality and most chips can be read by any scanner that has been made more recently. Therefore, if a shelter, pound, police department or veterinary office still has an old scanner (if any), they will not be able to determine if a chip is even present.
Another problem with chips is availability of scanning devices. One of our shelter clients was glad we talked him into putting a tag on his dog. When the dog ran off on a Sunday and appeared in a parking lot a mile away, no one who had a scanner was open. The kind motorist who found the disoriented dog simply called the phone number on the tag and the relieved owner drove over and recovered his new pet. Time elapsed: 5 hours. A call to animal control would have led to at least an overnight at the pound, plus a fine.
Since the motorist in this case was from out of town and not familiar with local options, it would have been difficult to know whom to call, likely ending up with shoulder shrugging and driving away, hoping the dog would be OK.
Dr. Peters started a rescue shelter in 2002 and has rescued and rehomed over 1,000 animals, mostly cats. Visit http://www.hipaws.com for some of their stories.
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