Microchipping - a waste of time! Unhappy ending!

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rebmm

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I had my 10 month old Border Terrier bitch microchipped when I first got her. Last week she chased off after a rabbit and got lost. Unknown to me she was taken to our local police station who kept her all night - they couldn't scan her for a microchip because their scanner broke down 5 years ago and hasn't been replaced yet. I had called the microchip company who assured me that if the police had her she would be scanned as 'all police stations have scanners' This clearly is not true so I urge you to check your local police station at once if youlose your dog. They tried to charge me for having her when I finally found where she was at 11am the next morning. Yeah right!! To make life even more stressful two days later she ran under the wheels of my Discovery and is now chasing bunnies in doggy heaven. I only insured her on my return from the police station so that will be an interesting one for the insurance company! and my electric dog fencing arrived yesterday!!!! What a life!!
 
Dogs eh??? You are having a rough time and all my sympathies. I still think microchipping worth while but good point. Our dog was microchipped but the thing moved from between his shoulder blades to a fair way down his right leg! We were always terrified as if he was stolen nobody would pick it up or know where to look. We were toying with the idea of an ear tattoo as well but like your pup, 2 weeks ago he went to doggy heaven and they will be bottie sniffing and chasing rabbits to their hearts content ( and in our dogs case chasing anything that is animal and moves....except lambs...he was terrified of lambs! Bulls o.k lambs no!)
 
This is the bugbear of all supporters of the Doglost website. We are held responsible for our dogs but if they go missing, despite all our efforts to make them identifyable, many many of them go through the system without ever being scanned but the police, vets, highways agencies or rescue centres. Obviously there are exceptions to this but if you go on the Doglost site you will find dozens of examples. One was taken in by a rescue and scanned but was in such bad condition when found that it was decided not to contact the original owner as they thought the dog had been abused. It turned out the dog had been missing for 2 years! The only people who scan them routinely are dog wardens so unless your missing dog ends up being picked up by a dog warden don't ever rely on a microchip.

On another note....you don't seem at all upset that you ran over your dog!
 
We found a stray lurcher last year. The dog warden came to collect him and scanned him but nothing showed. A few days later the people who owned him called me to thank me for finding him, and told me he was chipped! They had taken him to the vet on collecting him from kennels and chip showed up fine, so I don't have a lot of faith in them. Having said that the police are notoriously bad at not linking lost dogs with found dogs. And there was another case recently of a dog in police kennels not being fed and watered for several days - luckily this one survived. SO the moral is if you lose your dog keep mithering the police. Oh and my dogs are tattooed, and don't know how many places check for tattoos either. Sorry to hear about your poor dogs death.
 
A dog with a collar and ID disc is easily reunited with its owner if it gets lost, no microchip required.

On the other hand, I found a dog once running back and forth across the road. I followed it over a mile before deciding it was a stray. It had no ID disc (or I could have rung the owner and saved everyone a lot of trouble) so I took it home. I then rung the police who sent the dog warden round. He scanned for a microchip but none was found, so the dog was taken to the pound (which where I live is a local kennels).

The next day, the owners called me as the police had given them my number. I told them the dog had been taken to the pound (I couldn't exactly keep it as it was big and boisterous and I had 2 dogs of my own). They were hacked off, and I got the feeling this had happened before. Obviously you have to pay boarding fees to get your dog back from the pound. It could have been avoided if the dog had ID (1. collar/tag, 2. chip).

(I only picked the dog up, as I once lost mine, and was SO grateful to the person who took her in before she got run over and reunited us.)

I didn't get thanked, and I missed my niece and nephew performing a dance show that night on account of the lost dog.
 
How dare you say that I am not upset about the loss of my dog, you do not know me and people deal with grief and loss in many different ways. I have a young family and have had to hide my grief and feelings from them to help them with their loss before I can deal with my own. You really need to be more sensitive to other peoples feelings if you are going to leave remarks like that on forums, you have really upset me!!!! don't you think that I am racked with guilt, she died whimpering in my arms and I did that to her how the hell do you think that makes me feel!!!
 
rebmm, having unfortunately lost several pets whilst my children were young I know what you mean about trying to hide your grief. However, over the years I have realised that it actually seems to help them if you show you too are upset. My son particularly found it hard to show his grief when one of our dogs died, but in the end we had a good weep together, which helped him I think.
 
It's not fool safe i know but def worth it, especially for the sake of £20! When i was working in vets another nurse had one of her black labs stolen form her farm, they heard nothing despite all there efforts, then a pone call out of the blue 2 years later proved to be true, she had been scanned at a vets 200 miles away and showed as being owned by someone else. It turned out the 'new' owners had bought her in good faith. They had her back straight away and went back to her chair in the living room as if she had never been away.
 
It is a dilemma and how awful to hear that it doesn't always work. All mine are chipped as is my Horse. So sorry to hear of your loss.

oneofthepack...I can't believe you made that comment, how mean of you.
 
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