Tattooing an animal for ID purposes

Long ago when my husband got my maiden initials on his arm the guy who did it had his dog's stomach

tattoo for ID purposes. 

Would you do this for a cat or would you just get a chip or just a tag ?

Hmmm. It would have to be done while the cat was under anesthesia for something else. I like the tattoo idea better than microchipping (cancer risk) and every time I've put a break away collar on Sammy, it's broken away...... so, tags aren't great. Yes, I would consider it, I think. Lol! I just don't know! What info is in an ID tattoo? Addresses change so how would that work, I wonder?

I would chip instead. I think a chip would be less painful and easier to detect. Most vets and shelters automatically scan pets for chips, but how would they find a tattoo? Most cats have pretty furry bellies.

Tags are good too, but there is always the chance that they would lose their collar if you gt the safer breakaway kind. They can't lose a chip.

I think I would rather use the microchip.  I know they tattoo thoroughbred horses on the inside of their mouth which sounds really painful to me.  Some of those horses have actually shown up in horrible shape in rescues.  A descendant of Man-of-War showed up at the Houston SPCA and a descendant of Secretariet showed up somewhere in the eastern part of the country.  

  No freaking way would I tattoo any pet of mine! Bad enough I couldn't explain to Maia why she had to be spayed, or get antibiotic shots when she has had skin infections..................

    This is the common practice with racehorses, they tattoo the inside of their upper lip for identification.

I picked up a stray foxhound on the way home from work once and his ear was branded It looked like a crude, sloppily done job. Took him to the local vet office and they told me which hunt the brand (and the dog) were from, so I loaded him back up in the car and dropped him off at the hunt kennels. I was not impressed with the man I spoke to at the kennels. Knowing what I now know about how those dogs are treated, I wish I would have kept him. He was very hungry for affection, (and my leftover lunch) but I guess keeping him would have been stealing I bet that branding hurt like hell, poor guy

All of my cats have have or have had tattoos in their right ear to indicate they are owned and spayed/neutered.  The tattoo is registered with The Humane Society and contains my name, address and phone number.  When I move I notify them of the change and they update their records.

I don't believe in micro chipping. It's invasive, they can migrate and they aren't visible. Not everyone thinks to check for a microchip when they find a lost pet. 

Even my vet doesn't believe in microchipping, and told me that they tattoo only for the reasons I mentioned above.

The tattoo is deep into the ear so it isn't readily visible unless you look into the ear.

I wouldn't tattoo an animals stomach, again because it isn't visible. Granted it would prevent an unnecessary surgery when the stomach was shaved and the tattoo seen, but so does an ear tattoo. 

Our city council requires that pets are microchipped, and when the cats are spayed/neutered they get a tiny tattoo in their ear. 

It certainly makes TNR a lot easier as all neutered cats have the tattoo.

Tattooing a pet's ears was customary here before microchips became common. It was done under anesthesia, usually when the pet was neutered. One ear had the vet's initials and the year, the other an ID number that could be registered, prefaced by initials for the county. It could be a problem if the pet had black ears and thus gray skin in its ears, and the tattoos tended to fade over the years. Jamie had dark skin in his ears, and his tattoos were bright green at first, but were pretty much illegible by the time he was 9 or 10. He was also microchipped and wore a collar with an ID.

Mogli is microchipped and wears an ID collar. When he needs anesthesia for dental treatment, etc., I'll probably ask that he be tattooed also, though I'm not certain our vet still does it. The advantage is that people see the tattoos and hopefully will make an effort to locate the owner, whereas they might not even think about having a stray checked for a microchip or be bothered to do so.

If you travel with a pet in the European Union, the pet has to have a passport with the pet's vaccination details. Originally a tattoo was required, but that's been replaced by a microchip; the number and a bar code are entered in the passport.

I would not tatoo a cat unless it was part of a medically necessary operation/procedure, i.e., dental.  Anethesia is required for tatooing; it is not required for microchipping.

I decided to microchip Ritz when I moved to a more residential area and into a home that was on the ground floor.  Previously I lived on the top floor and was practical in that if Ritz jumped from the balcony or broke through the screen, it would be a death sentence.  I found out later than Animal Control scans all cats, dead or alive; unless the animal is in really really bad shape, the microchip survives, although the cat didn't.  Would provide closure, at the least.

I would hope that if anyone found Ritz they would think to take her to the vets to be scanned for a microchip; microchips seem to be popular where I live.

The one problem with microchipping is, depending upon who you go through (organization, company), you have to pay a yearly fee.  I have pet insurance, and I get a discount on the premium equal to the yearly fee.

The feral cats in this area are ear-tipped.  I know that one organization (P.A.W.S.) recently received a grant for very low cost microchipping of stray cats (assuming you can re-trap them).

Tattooing was a very common method of identification for pets and livestock years ago - with pets, the ears were done when the animal was undergoing another procedure that required heavy sedation or anaesthetic and large animals were just done with restraints. Horses are tattooed by putting a clamp on the upper lip which almost acts like a sedative (releases endorphins); I have witnessed this numerous times and never saw any fighting once the clamp was on. The Standardbred registries now freeze brand all horses and it must be done before the horse is registered.

As to the descendants of famous horses, those descendants are numerous - a horse is bred to many mares every year and even with a limited book, that would be 100 foals per year over 10+ years and roughly half are mares and those have foals and so on. In the span of the several decades, that makes for thousands of descendants......having the descendant of a famous horse of any breed isn't that rare. To show how common, I traced my horses back to the 1700s and both are descendants of Godolphin Arabian and Bryerly Turk and more recently, Albatross and one goes back to Tar Heel = twice. .

You could put a    or some number in a certain spot that only you know was..

Our cats were microchipped at the SPCA before we got them.  They also wear collars because as Natalie pointed out, not everyone would think to get a lost cat checked for a microchip.  The collars have small tags with the cat's name and our phone #, but they are breakaway collars on active cats! and I've had to replace them several times.  Sometimes I'll find a tag out in the yard and re-use it so the cats don't always have a tag with their own name on it   but the phone # is what's most important.

The indoor cats we got earlier this year weren't chipped and I didn't see any need to get them chipped; I don't expect they'll be outside.  I also have collars on them with bells on them but that's for my benefit--there are always cats underfoot and the bells help me know where they are.  

I think that was a good idea to already get them chipped. I know Bella & Thunder want to go outside and I feel bad cause I won't let them. They can see the birds and other cats out the patio door windows  but to me they seem content. But I know if that front door is open long enough they will escape.

My baby Bella was tattooed by the SPCA. I did have her micro-chipped for her first birthday. Sadly, I lost her and had to cancel her protection.

jlc20m

If there was a set location yes I would think of doing it.  issue is it could be in many spots and a scared cat may not be able to be handled long at all.  a chip can be scanned fast but to hold cat up to see and if the fur regrew to long or the cat had been missing a long tijme and matted it may not show.

If it was a standard like ear tipping  or all tattoos done on inner rear leg it would be much better.  None of my cats have collars.  I do not think many would go up to a person and I would probably trap them before a neighbor even noticed/called AC so I do not worry much about that.

Some cats who are outside looking for food and someone to love them would just take them in and not return them to the outside world. And then people would always wonder where their cats were.