A microchip is only useful when it is registered and regularly updated, but it also needs to be checked by pet owners who take in strays to ensure that a homeless cat is taken back home whenever possible.
You need to ensure your cat has a microchip registered with a government-approved database by the time they are 20 weeks old, regardless of whether they are house cats or prefer the outdoors.
However, it is also important if you locate a lost cat to check its microchip too, in order to avoid the rather unfortunate story of Ethan and his own Ian Haskins, as reported by the BBC.
Mr Haskins’ cat was reported missing five years before, during which time he had been taken in as a stray by a different owner and renamed Rupert.
He was taken care of well, but when the owner died, the rescue shelter found out that “Rupert” was actually Ethan, had been registered to Mr Haskins and had been reported missing in Exeter.
They quickly got in touch and reunited Ethan with his sister, which delighted Mr Haskins, and he took the time to not only thank the rescue centre but also credit the microchip for helping him get his cat back.
The one aspect of the story that is somewhat confusing is how the microchip was not scanned sooner, which suggests that whilst the previous owner took great care of a cat he thought had no owner, he also did not at any point take him to a shelter or a vet, where Ethan’s owner would have been revealed through a scan.
Whilst this story had a happy ending, it is also an ending that may not have taken five years to tell, and it is always worth taking stray cats to a rescue or vet if you find them to ensure that they can be reunited with their owner if they have one.