National Pet ID Week is April 15 – 21 this year. Dogs can’t read a map to find their way home. Did you know one in three pets will go missing at some point in their life? According to the American Humane Association say over ten million dogs and cats are lost and stolen in the US each year. What can you do to protect your best friend if they go missing?
National Pet ID Week – ID Tags, Chips, Licenses
ID Tags
ID tags are probably the most common way pet parents choose to safeguard their pets in the event they get lost. There are many different kinds of ID tags available, some are inexpensive, some are more pricey. An ID tag is a good place to start, but what if your dog loses her collar, or escapes out the door without her collar? Many ID tags also wear out in time, to the point where you can no longer read the information. If you are moving, order a new tag before you move so your dog has proper ID from day one at your new home!
Bailie escaped from daycare at BlogPaws in 2014. The dog walker attached her leash to the ID ring, not the collar. The ring broke the minute Bailie pulled. Tags went flying, and Bailie was loose. Thankfully, they caught her quickly, but her tags were all gone. She just wanted to find her mom again, but at a resort in Vegas, it would be a tough thing for a dog to do. We all wear our Silver Paw Pet Tags. Mine is four years old and still good as new. I highly recommend this type of tag, and if you move, they will simply amend your information for a small fee! ID tags are great, but they are not the only protection you need.
Microchips
Microchips are the best way to assure your dog is returned to you if she gets lost. While the average person can easily read an ID tag, you do need a microchip reader to read the information on a chip. The good thing is, the chip is in your dog for life, and won’t fall off, or get lost. Every time we go to the vet, we have them check our chips to make sure everything is in order. Only about twenty percent of pets in shelters are returned to their homes, but if they are microchipped, that number increases to almost sixty percent. There are different types of chips and chip placements around the world. I have two chips, one from the UK, and a USA one.
Why are not 100% of microchipped dogs returned to their homes? Humans often forget to update the chip information when they move. If your dog is chipped, make sure to keep the information current, by filling out the online profile for your chip company. We all wear a tag as well, to let everyone know we have a chip. Sometimes these tags break or the information get scratched off with wear and tear. Bailie lost hers recently. Mom ordered this purple girl replacement tag with a glow in the dark rubber surround for her. Since we take our collars off every night before bed, Mom checks each of them to make sure the tags are still there, are legible, and the collars are in good order.
City Dog Licenses
Most cities and towns require dog licenses. This is probably the one thing many people do not do. Dog licenses are not only for the USA, we were also licensed in Germany. If your dog goes missing around your area, the license will help her get home quickly because the city knows where she lives, and who her parents are from the city records. The tag above was from Trine years ago in Germany. We didn’t want to post our own licenses with our information online.
Our current licenses are green and last for two years. You can see Bailie’s behind her chip tag. One super cool thing we recently found out about has to do with dogs in Minneapolis and St. Paul. To help get people to register their dogs with the cities, if a lost and licensed pet is found in Minneapolis or St. Paul, they will be given a free ride home using Uber! How cool is that! Imagine the look on a pet parent’s face when their lost dog rolls up in the backseat of an Uber? We don’t know if this happens in other cities as well, but you might want to ask, or make the suggestion!
A Combination Is Best
My mom never wants to lose us. We lost our cat bro Tom in 2008, and never found him. It still bothers Mom. To do the best we can to be returned to our home if we ever get lost, we are all chipped, we wear three tags, ID tags, city licenses, and a tag to let humans know we are chipped. Mom also checks our information online regularly to make sure it is all correct. Hopefully we are covered if we lose our collar, or one or more of our tags. It’s National Pet ID Week, what are you doing to make sure your pet gets home safely if she goes missing?
Excellent idea and your I.D.s look great too. It’s always wise to make the easy and safe choices like those!
We don’t ever want to get lost and never come home again.
One thing I like about the company we got Luke’s chip through is that they will email me every so often and ask if his information is up to date. I had remembered to do it when we moved but it’s a great reminder for those that mght forget. I do need to check all his tags though and make sure they are still readable. Some of his collars have his name and our phone number on them too. I like that for him, since he might not let anyone get close to him to check his tag; but they might be able to read his collar from a distance.
It’s good to have a couple options because you never know the circumstances when a pet goes missing.Even a friendly dog may be too frightened to let someone get up close.
Great and important article 😀
It is important to always be prepared. Just an average day can turn to a nightmare if a pet gets lost.
Thank you for this post! We are diligent about our dogs’ ID tags and chip info. We also have “double door” at each entrance so that it requires that a person leaves both doors (inner and outer) open for our dogs to escape. We never worried so much about it until Shyla came to us. If there are strangers in our house, I fear that she wouldn’t come back when called. Also, she wears a tag that says that she has epilepsy and says what meds she takes for it so that a shelter can get her meds from a vet if needed.
Thanks again!
We just saw something about medical alert tags here at BlogPaws. Also an important thing to make note of. Can that info be put with the chip info too, I wonder?
I have an ID tag I always wear and a tattoo!
Our last cats had tattoos. You should get a chip!
Great reminders! I ordered the boys new tags a month before we moved and updated their chips the day we signed on our home. Having a lost pet is one of the most helpless feelings in the world. Pierre darted out of the door a couple of weeks ago. I panicked but thankfully he is a social butterfly and stopped to visit a neighbor. She held him until I caught up with him.
Mom’s worst fear is us running out the door. Most likely it would be to chase a critter and we wouldn’t watch for cars. Still, one never knows and being equipped with proper ID is so important.
Merlin has an id tag, microchip and a dog registration tag. Our tags are yellow this year and we have to be registered yearly. Luckily with Merlin being desexed and microchipped our fees are low. He also has a tattoo in his ear that stands for Microchipped and another tattoo for Desexed. We make sure that his details are all up to date. I still want a dog driving licence for him too.
We had cats with tattoos, but they were super hard to see under the fur, but it is still an added layer of protection. In our city, being neutered or spayed doesn’t change the license price, but license are inexpensive here.
Great information, my pets don’t wear collars but are all microchipped.
We have to wear collars because we can’t be off leash, but chips are the best anyway, since they can’t get lost. As long as they are periodically checked, that is.
We have all sorts of combinations on us including being microchipped.
That is the best way to try to keep safe if you are ever lost.