Getting your dog or cat microchipped and having them registered with a database and chip checker service is an essential part of being a pet owner.
The biggest reason why this is the case is that it is the law and owners can be fined as much as £500 if their dog or cat is not microchipped.
However, beyond legal responsibilities and a general responsibility to your local community, microchips can be essential for saving a pet’s life or reuniting a lost dog with their owner.
In one case, this happened despite said dog going missing for over a decade, according to a beautiful story reported by the Associated Press.
In 2015, Judith Monzarrez, a native of Las Vegas, Nevada, lost her pet dog Gizmo due to a faulty back gate in their home.
The dog, then two years old, was always on Judith’s mind even when she completed her master’s degree, started teaching in higher education and moved out of her parent’s home.
The one hope she had was that Gizmo was microchipped and she had not received any bad news, and even as the years passed, that kept a spark of hope in her heart, as well as worry about where her pet Chihuahua was and if he was okay.
However, on 17th July 2024, she got a call she had dreamed of receiving for nine years but never expected. A woman had taken her dog to the vet, who then confirmed his identity thanks to his microchip.
This led to an automatic email notification that Gizmo had been found, and just a few hours later Judith and Gizmo were finally reunited after nine years and had a chance to catch up on so many lost years.
This reunion simply could not have happened without microchips and it is just one of so many instances of lost pets being reunited through the technology.
