Microchips are about 12mm in length, or similar in size to a grain of rice.
The pet microchipping procedure is relatively quick and easy; your florence animal hospital veterinarian only has to inject it under your cat’s skin right between their shoulder blades, and they’re all set.
The next key step is to register the chip’s unique ID number with your contact information into the National Pet Recovery Database. This ensures that your pet can be traced back to you via their ID number.
The microchip has no internal power source. Instead, in order to read the chip, it needs to be scanned with a handheld scanning device that transmits radio waves to the chip. This gives the chip just enough power to transmit its ID number back to the scanner, which displays the number on its screen.
Each microchip is unique and carries vital information about your pet—including your name, address, and contact information.
If your wandering dog or cat should end up at other Veterinary hospitals, animal shelters, and animal control offices across the country are equipped with special electronic scanners that can detect the microchip and read the identification number.
If a lost pet is picked up by animal control or found by a good Samaritan and presented to a veterinarian, a quick scan of the microchip reveals the identification number. A toll-free phone call to the pet recovery database alerts the microchip company that a lost pet has been identified. The pet owner can then be contacted and reunited with his or her pet!
If you and your pet move and change locations later on, be sure to update your contact information in the database.>