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microchip vs tatoo


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I was wondering if anyone had opinions on getting your dog micro-chipped vs tattooed?

 

How young can you get a tattoo done and still read it? Do you find the micro-chip moves as pups grow?

 

Do those who breed dogs, get all their pups micro-chipped, and keep the tracking linked to them?

 

My bcs (2) have both done, but I have yet to have a vet that actually looks for a tattoo. And with each having a different Microchip, I have yet gone go a vet that can read both chips. (I went to a different vet for getting their hips checked--that had four people look at them, and have moved, so 6 people and no notice of a tattoo)

 

What do Rescue groups do to track the dogs they adopt out?

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The problem with tatoos is that unless there is a registry that the Tatoo is regsitered with, such as the Canadian Kennel Club or the Canadian Border Collie Association here in Canada, tatoos are totally useless, as they cannot be tracked.

 

I get countless phone calls from Vet Clinics and SPCAS, etc asking if I can help them trace a certain tatoo - and I can't because I know it is not a CBCA tatoo registration number.

 

I know some Vets put a tatoo on when they spay/neuter and some SPCAS put a tatoo on when they adopt out but without a national tatoo data base that records every conceivable tatoo from every place/person, they simply are not traceable and are useless.

 

So if a dog from ABC Border Colle Rescue in say New Brunswick shows up in Manitoba because the family was there and the dog got lost, stolen, etc there would be no way to trace the tatoo back to that rescue group or the owners.

 

ON the other hand microchips can be read anywhere and the dog identified anywhere. All our rescue dogs are microchipped with the new owner as the first contact and a rescue worker as the second contact.

 

My Border Collies are tatooed because they are registered with CBCA, so their tatoos can be recognized and my dogs can be traced either back to me or whichever breeder I purchased a Border Collie from. However, if I were to get an unregistered Border Collie or cross, I would microchip it for identification purposes.

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I do both. I lived in an area where AC did not have chip readers and so I tattooed everyone. Later I got microchips as well. You could always tattoo the microchip number or simply something like "microchipped" if you wanted to make sure someone made an effort to look for a chip.

 

Around here there are practitioners who do not anesthetize to tattoo, so it's quite easy to get it done. The tattoos are easy to read on my dogs (they are large and on the inside thigh/groin). If the dog shows its belly at all you can see the tattoo.

 

Northof49 makes a good point about tracing tattoos, but there is one registry I think, the National Dog Registry maybe?

 

Anyway, since I do both, maybe I'm just the queen of overkill.

 

J.

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On the flipside N49, whenever we have gotten in a CBCA registered dog from a shelter, the shelter had never heard of the CBCA and had no idea how to look up that tattoo! The know of CKC tattoos and vet tattoos and that is it. I returned a recently purchased puppy to a breeder this way. FORTUNATELY the shelter eagerly works with BC Rescue. If it was one of the other shelters the highly adoptable puppy would have been adopted out and never seen again.

 

Also, I got a call from a police officer (no shelter / AC there) in Alaska who said some folks travelling through had picked up a dog in Northern BC. It had a CBCA tattoo (which the police officer, of course, did not recognize). I tracked it on the website but could not find the owner contact info. I contacted the CBCA web master who said he would contact the owner of that tattoo but that was the last I heard of it. The travellers eventually drove out of Alaska and back to the US without taking their dog.

 

Conversely, I have a list of all tattoo prefixes in use in BC and can track any dog back to, at the very least, the vet clinic he was tattooed at.

 

Of course, at the same time, I have seen shelters forget to record or ignore tattoos and we in fact adopted a dog "stray, owner unknown" from the SPCA, that had a big fat SPCA tattoo in her ear! They just didn't look.

 

RDM

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WE had our young BC scanned at a Pet Expo recently. Her microchip had moved to her right shoulder area and they had to do a lot of scanning (with a hand held scanner) to find it. I'm told the scanners at our Animal Control and local humane society are bigger and should find the chip quicker, but that many not really be true.

Back in the days when identity theft was not so common, my dogs were tatooed with my social security number!

Barb

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My pets have both tattoes and microchips. I like microchips because they tend to be able to be read anywhere. Some of the US ones can't be read in Canada however (encrypted AVID ones). The ISO ones seem to be the new one to go for and is what they are using in europe. The only downside to a microchip is sometimes some readers have a harder time picking up certain types of microchips so people who are scanning may give up too soon.

I like tattoes because its easily visible (allthough with one of my dog's there's no way anyone would be able to get close enough to her ear to look). The downside to tattoes is they fade and are hard to trace. Also an animal should be under anesthetic for a tattoo. At the clinic I work for we used to give people the option of having an MC tattoed in the ear of animals getting a microchip.

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around here a tattoo is more reliable, this sounds like its not the case in other places. here hardly anyone has ever heard of a microchip, the first thing any joe blow does when they find a dog here is look for a tattoo if they dont find one and the dog has no tags they either keep the dog, take take it to the shelter telling them the dog is a stray and has no form of ID or they descibe the dog is the lost and found section of the paper. I had one of my dogs back before we knew he was gone via a tattoo, all the person had to do was call the shelter relay the tattoo number and the shelter called us and gave us the name and number of the person who found him.

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I do both, here we use AVID microchips, so I have my dogs tatoo'd "AVID MICROCHIP". Haven't had to see if it works to date, but when we first started placing chips, we did them subcutaneously and Luke's migrated to his sternum, BUT having learned that, if we get a dog in to scan, we scan EVERYWHERE. Now they place them IM, no floats.

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Guest amylobdell24

I've worked at vet clinics for 13 years now, and can tell you that most places do not look for tatoos. I've not tatoo'ed my dogs because I have seen so many totally unreadable ones. Both of my dogs are chipped with AVID chips - the Home Again scanner will only read Home Again chips (it comes up "AV Chip" if you scan an AVID chip with a Home Again reader - it tells you there's a chip there, but will not give you the number). Whereas, the AVID scanner will read both types of chips. Most AC places have a universal scanner - it is bigger and will read all types of chip numbers - even the European brands. It is really expensive, though, so most vet clinics don't have one (the smaller readers come free with an initial order of chips). And the last poster is right - there was a big mail-out by AVID about new placement protocols - IM now instead of SQ. The chips are barbed and are supposed to form a little pocket of scar tissue in which to imbed themselves, but I've seen many a chip migrate to odd places not normally scanned.

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Can only anecdotally disagree with last poster ...we do look for tatoos on any found dog, BUT it is more difficult if they are scared or defensive and rolling them over then is tricky. Tatoos are also a bit of a maintenence issue if hair grows over the site or it does fade a bit. For what it's worth, we scan found DOA's too, and look for tatoos on those as well.

I'd be willing to bet last poster's right though on "most" places, but hope it's not the case. ID tags of some kind sure do make it easier.

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On the flipside N49, whenever we have gotten in a CBCA registered dog from a shelter, the shelter had never heard of the CBCA and had no idea how to look up that tattoo! The know of CKC tattoos and vet tattoos and that is it

 

Most people do phone the CKC when tatoo letters are present, as they are the only registry that most people know of. Usually with Border Collies, one of two things happen, depending on whom they talk to at the CKC office - they are referred to me, as I have my name standing with them with respect to Border Collie inquiries OR they are referred directly to CBCA.

 

 

Conversely, I have a list of all tattoo prefixes in use in BC and can track any dog back to, at the very least, the vet clinic he was tattooed at.

 

But that is just you and your organization RDM. Again, it does no good if the dog is lost or picked up in another Province or by someone that has no knowledge of the tatoo numbers. When someone phones me from Alberta with a tatoo number that is not a registry number, the only thing I can recommend for them to do is to phone every single Pound, SPCA and Vet Clinic in their area and then in the entire Province of Alberta and just maybe they might be able to track them down.

 

Because it is not uncommon these days to adopt from an SPCA not in your Province it makes it difficult as well. I know our SPCA certainly does not have a listing for any tatoo used by any other SPCA across Canada.

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