The law surrounding microchipping pets and registering them to a database so their details can be looked up is an acknowledgement of the vital role microchipping plays in keeping pets safe and ensuring they get back home if they do get lost.
You need to ensure your dog is microchipped by eight weeks old or your cat by 20 weeks old, and we provide a comprehensive service for microchipping, scanning and searching for pets on the various government-approved databases they can be linked with.
In one case, however, as reported by The Mirror, a dog managed to find a good home thanks to a microchip, albeit potentially not the one from which they had gone missing.
According to the story, a delivery driver found a Papillon dog lost on the side of the road. When nobody claimed the dog after it was shared on social media, one member of the community went to the vet to get the lost dog’s details looked up.
Whilst contact information was found, the person who received the phone call allegedly simply stated that it was not their dog.
The article assumes that it was abandoned, but it is possible that there was an issue with the details that had been entered. Whilst unlikely, it is possible that:
– The database number on the microchip is linked to the wrong entry on the – database, although this is extraordinarily rare.
– The phone number was entered incorrectly, leading to the wrong person being called.
– The dog changed owners since it had been microchipped, and the new details had not been entered.
Dogs must be legally held for at least seven days by a dog warden before they are rehomed or passed on to a kennel or animal shelter with space that can find them a good home.
They will usually be able to help with the process of reuniting a dog with its owner or finding them a new home and updating the microchip details accordingly.
