I think microchips are a good idea for pet animals. They not only help you find the pet if it’s lost, they ALSO put out an APB if you report your pet lost. You have to keep whatever company the chip is registered to updated as to your address and contact info.
Therefore, if you report your pet lost this database will upload that to a NATIONAL notification system. If the pet is ever found - dead or alive - you will be notified, assuming it is picked up by Animal Control or taken to a vet or a shelter.
That doesn’t mean that if someone steals your pet and takes it to a veterinarian that the vet will scan for a microchip; HOWEVER, they will ask where you got the pet. If the thief says “from a shelter” or “from my neighbor” or whatever, the vet may take it upon him/herself to do a scan. (When me and Mr K - not the one on this forum - took in a stray and took him to the vet, we did report that he was a stray and the vet told us the cat had no microchip, so he was being conscientious. Your results may vary.)
“Let’s now say that a vet does scan the pet, perhaps because a new chip was requested by the new “owner,” and discovers the old chip, the one I had placed in the pet. Is the vet obligated to notify the recording organization that the pet has been found, or just to tell the new claimant about the finding?”
The vet may not be obligated to inform, but just in the act of looking it up, he has put an alert into the system. The staff at “petfinders” or whatever are rewarded handsomely for getting a pet back with his rightful owners, so even if the vet doesn’t care, the tracking service will.
If there are plenty of ground squirrels, mice, and birds, it’s doubtful a coyote or owl will hang around just looking for cats - coyotes are opportunistic and most foxes and owls will go after smaller prey.
If someone is taking cats, you and your neighbors should sort of sneakily look around for pit bull breeders. They will take pet animals, cats and dogs, and they don’t bother scanning. You can report pit bull breeders to law enforcement, and you should. They ALWAYS kidnap pet animals to use for training. They are mean to the dogs, too.
I hope this helps.
(Note: I do not think microchips are a good idea for people except maybe convicted child molesters and so on. But people can take their chips out, so it’s not going to help much in that case, either.)
Very good post. Thanks.
I didn’t know if when a chipped pet is found, it immediately sends a signal to the database maintenance company, but that would make sense. I guess the scanner has to be “online” do that, but the detection of a chip, reported or not, should clue the vet in to the fact that the animal has an identifying device.