Microchip Registration?

[tangers40]

Upon reading another thread, I got to thinking about registering my cat's microchip. I have it registered on found.org (information for them was provided to me upon adoption), but are there other sites I should register her on as well? Or is one site enough? I of course want to have the best chance of finding her information if something should happen, but I know nothing about microchip registries other than the one I was provided already.

 

[LTS3]

There isn't a microchip company / registry that will register all different brands of microchips. The best you can do is register the microchip with the company that makes it If your cat wears ID tags, have a custom tag made with the microchip ID number and the phone number of the microchip company.

Remember to keep your cat's microchip information updated with new phone numbers, address, vet info, etc. A quick call to the microchip company is all it takes.

 

[Kieka]

I would recommend calling your local shelter and vets within a 5 mile radius (or good sampling). Find out what system/registry they use to check microchip information and make sure your microchip is registered. In most cases I've found that will be the actual manufactures website but a few places near me also use registries like the one you did (and fewer check multiple sources). My shelter does the chip manufacture and their dog license database. So I registered with the chip manufacture and got dog licenses for my cats. It may lead to some confusion if they are picked up but I'd rather get a call to sort it out then have it be somehow missed.

If you have the time I would call major metropolitan areas within your state to check what their county/city shelters check as well as breed specific rescues. Also, any time you update, register or change information call back and verify the information was properly updated with a different representative 24 hours later. The reason being, someone near me recently recovered their dog after the dog was lost for two months. The dog was picked up off the street after she got out by someone who used her as bait for a dog fight then threw her out of their car on a freeway when she was too hurt to continue. A good Samaritan saw the dog being tossed, stopped, took her to a vet, the vet hearing the story checked the microchip and found the information had recently been deleted (what happened there was when the owners found her missing they called and realized the phone number was old, so they asked for it to be updated. The support person they talked to accidentally deleted everything instead of updating it). The vet patched up the dog and contacted a breed specific rescue who took the dog in, assuming the microchip wipe was because the owner dumped her on the freeway and didn't want her back. The breed specific rescue is based 100 miles from the dogs original home. After two months the dog was healed and up for adoption. It is only because of someone who specifically looks for matches between lost and found dogs without regard for distance that the owners were reunited with their dog. Even then it was a near thing, the owners couldn't reach the foster group by phone and went to the adoption event that started 2 hours after they were contacted about the match to their dog. There was someone signing paperwork to adopt their dog when they arrived at the event (obviously they explained everything and showed the lost posters they had plastered everywhere in our town so the agency gave them back their dog). Stories like that are why my cats have collars, microchips, are cross registered on multiple sites, and, when Link went missing, I sent out flyers with his photo far and wide.