Sassy cats — Photos and pet chip info

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I have a few pictures to make you smile. We have a catnip kicker toy. The young’uns love it.

I apologize for the blurry pictures but there is a lot of action going on. Too much for my camera.

It’s a straight, fairly stiff catnip-filled stick. The cats grab with the front paws and kick with the back paws. We have two but they always fight over the same one. What starts out simple and looks like sharing, ends up like this.

It has resulted in a brawl. If you look in the back, you can see Morgan viewing the debacle with no intention of getting involved. To complete the photos, Sasha wanted a new photo that shows off her cuteness factor.

Yes Sasha, you are adorable!

This past week I looked deeper into pet chips. Three of my cats are microchipped. It’s a small rice-sized transponder that is injected under the skin. When a pet is lost, it can be scanned for a serial number which (hopefully) the owner registered with a database. It doesn’t hurt or bother the cats but I wondered if it worked. Most rescues automatically microchip before putting animals up for adoption.

When I adopted the cats, they were already chipped. The chip company charges an annual fee to “register” your pet. I have four and it would be over $100 annually for all. I searched and found a free registration site and used that (freepetchipregistry.com). Then I wondered if it was legit. There are different chip companies and different databases. Would a rescue group find my information by scanning my cat?

It’s all murky. There are many databases and until recently there wasn’t a “universal” scanner. The scanners use radio frequency (chip companies use different frequencies) to extract the registration number from the chip.

Things have improved a little bit. The American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) has a search engine that can identify the chip number across many databases and refer you to the proper one. I checked and all three of my cats are listed on two different databases.

My cats are indoor only and have no interest in the outdoors. If a door is left open by accident, no one goes out. There is always a chance that one will freak out and escape but barring a disaster like a fire or home invasion, it’s unlikely.

The chip offers peace of mind for neurotic pet owners like myself.

Author’s note: These are my observations and I’m not at all an expert. I would recommend that anyone contemplating a microchip do research and ask your vet.

 

62 thoughts on “Sassy cats — Photos and pet chip info”

  2. That’s a stunning picture of Sasha – those eyes are mesmerizing. I don’t have any pets but the crime site I follow for our City often features posts of people who have found dogs and had them checked and their owners are discovered right away. Then there are the pleas by those with lost pets saying “he/she is microchipped” … in almost every instance, those pets are returned in short order.

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  3. There’s a lot more decision-making options going into the chipping process than I knew about, Kate. I didn’t realize there were so many different ways to go! I do think that it’s like all forms of insurance. We sleep better for having it and hope we just never need to use any of it! Good information here!

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  4. WWC [World Wrestling Cats]? I think Morgan has the right idea. Both my guys are chipped (and have tags on their collars, too) but I had no idea the chipping biz was so complicated (i.e. expensive). It shouldn’t be so hard/costly. So much for benevolence. Our vet recommends it (many rescues do as well) and know it has reunited lost pets with their owners. I’m always touched by the happy endings. Freak escapes happen so reunification of beloved pet with family seems like a good thing in the overall scheme of life. Happy weekend.

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  7. Even those legit chip company sometimes make you feel like you have to register or update every year for a fee but in reality they are usually a lifetime service and that you don’t need to do that unless you change the cats name or your address or something like that. So make sure you get the real scoop on it before you waste your money. I found that out from the shelter that I volunteer at.

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    • That’s good advice. When I did a check on my cats’ registration, there are many databases. I thought I would add them to a few others but each time I tried, I was asked to pay a fee. I am comfortable that they will be found since they are on two and showed up just fine. Since my cats are indoor only, it’s unlikely I’ll need it but many years ago a friend’s house burned down to the ground. Her dog got out but they couldn’t find the cat. No one was home so they were hoping the cat left the house on it’s own. The local shelter gave them great advice and within a day the cat came back looking for the home. A neighbor alerted them and they were able pick her up.

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  8. We have an older cat that we have not bothered to get chipped as she rarely strays outside our garden. We have got a kitten package for Heidi which includes chipping, vaccinations, flea treatment , worming and neutering. I am feeling poor already. I changed my profile picture so you can see her. She does look a bit like Mollie.

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  9. It’s law here to have all dogs chipped but not cats I think…. yet. I think it’s a good idea.
    We paid to have our address updated each time but later decided to pay the ‘for life’ fee which is however many times with no extra charge. Sigh, we are now in our forever home so I’ve only called upon it twice.. It cost £25 to have Maggie chipped at the vets, and that included registration onto the database. All vets we’ve signed on with have checked she’s chipped and the number coincides with us and our current address. Here they have remarked that the number is so old a sequence, they don’t recognise it (but the system does thank goodness!)

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  10. Interesting about the chips. Teddy was chipped at the rescue place . Jack isn’t, he was a stray found by a friend who couldn’t keep him because her dog said no cats allowed.
    As for catnip kickers…Jack has no interest in nip and Teddy just like to roll around in it then passes out.

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  11. All the realm members are chipped as they were rescues. Actually we did search and even double chipped Molly as the one the rescue used wasn’t as widely used. There are so many options – some to cross check. People need to remember to update their contact info periodically (and make sure the company is still working). We just worry.
    GPS probably will be added to Molly once we relocate/travel and she doesn’t know the area. The National Parks service has far too many stories of dogs getting lost and desperate owners.

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  12. I’m not aware of an annual fee for a microchip. I paid for our first three stray cats to be chipped. Never paid for them again. The two I adopted came chipped and I didn’t pay for the chips. I did log in and transfer the chip info to my info instead of the rescue’s info. I’m pretty sure that once they’re chipped, your info is saved for life. There may be other services offered that cost a fee? Perhaps the ability to search for chips, but I’ve never heard of an annual fee and certainly don’t pay one. Btw, I just started using microchip pet feeders that recognize each cat’s unique chip. I’ll be blogging about it later!

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    • Both of my last pets required a fee to register them as the rescue chipped them but did not register them. I understand that they could track back to a rescue by the number but the owner has to submit info. Morgan was chipped and I transferred but kept getting notices that said I needed to pay an annual fee to maintain the service. I have no idea what that meant. That was when I went searching for a free database to register on. I’m intrigued about the feeders. I suspect (no, I KNOW) that Sasha cleans up everyone’s plate.

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  14. Garnet, my schnauzer -mix was let out of our yard by an unknown person one day while my husband I were at work. I got a Couple of texts from the chip company and a Call from the veterinarian to whom she was taken by Good Samaritans. Within hours I had left my downtown office, collected Garnet, and taken her home. Without the chip, we may not have been reunited, and certainly not as quickly. I’m a believer!

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  17. Those registered chips only “chip in” to help locate owners IF a pet is found wandering around and “captured” and scanned . . .

    To find a missing pet, wouldn’t a GPS system be faster? Or are they cost prohibitive?

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    • GPS is faster and if you have a valuable easily-frightened dog, well worth it. You need cell reception and the distance is limited. At least those were the conditions when I last investigated it (which may be all different now). Also they weren’t small. Kind of clunky for a small cat. They are at least twice as costly as a chip but at least the owner can track the animal. Many owners don’t do anything themselves. That’s why rescues started chipping.

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      • Thanks, Kate. I like the idea of pets being reunited with their people. 😀

        I expect it’s only a matter of time until humans are routinely chipped so that our heads can be scanned before boarding aircraft or entering a bank or our place of business. I think some companies already require it (or maybe just offer it) to employees. It’s all very big brother-ish to me

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  18. Theo isn’t a cat who cares much for toys – except those kick toys. He goes bonkers over those things. The first one I ever got him, he literally kicked the stuffing out of it. I laughed until I cried. It was so funny to watch. He was like a cat possessed!

    Theo, being a rescue, was chipped before I got him. Being an outdoor cat, it does give me some peace of mind. I know it works because the first time I took him to a vet, one of the first things they did was check for a chip and whether it was registered to me. They actually commented on it (as in ‘glad to see he has a chip’).

    I don’t pay anything to have Theo registered and was surprised to hear that some places do. Would I pay a fee to have him registered? Yeah, I think I would although admittedly $100 for 4 cats would give me pause.

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    • I like that your vet checked. When I adopted Morgan 5 years ago, she was chipped. Gracie and Sasha were chipped too. Only Mollie adopted in 2005 wasn’t. At this point she’s an old cat who rarely sits in the screened porch (preferring the bed in her bedroom) so I won’t bother. Now it’s standard procedure here with the rescues and the first thing my vet asks about at the first visit. I liked that I was able to track the number on-line. It didn’t give my info publicly but there was a process to let the owner know if I had found the cat. The kick toy is definitely a winner here (at least with the two young ones). That and catnip pillows I make myself which they all love. The feather on a stick works for the two younger ones too but that’s about it.

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  21. The shelter where we adopted Teddy and his predecessor Sammy chips their cats and dogs before allowing them to be adopted. The shelter registered Teddy while we were there doing the paperwork to take him home. Even though it would be some sort of disaster situation that would cause Ted to be out on his own, at least there’s some peace of mind that he could be found by someone who would take him to a vet to have him checked for a chip. It’s sort of dependent on the whole system “working” like clockwork I suppose. Better safe than sorry??

    Hugs, Pam

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    • Locally our shelters do that too and I assumed the same thing. Since I didn’t pay the “fee” to the manufacturer, I wondered if I was covered. Initially there was no universal scanner so someone could take your chipped pet to a shelter but the scanner wouldn’t read the chip and you wouldn’t be notified. Most of that has been rectified now. How dumb is it that companies didn’t work together at the start? There are many databases and my cats are only in two but the search engine should find them.

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  22. wea have one database now what works for all… but the mighty fine EU has different systems what cause trouble when you cross the borders… and a vet tech with no sense of directions who wrote left shoulder but the chips is at the right side >LOL

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