This letter with replies appeared in the Veterinary Record. This will help you understand what we are up against!:-
I understand it is not normal practice for veterinary surgeons to automatically scan puppies and dogs brought to them for the first time, maybe by an unknown client, for the presence of a microchip. I accept that by far the vast majority of pets are legally owned, but a routine scan with a chip reader could pick up the odd one that might be stolen or lost.
I write because our own three-month-old chocolate cocker spaniel bitch was stolen recently. We had gone to the expense of chipping her and I am sick with worry over what might have happened to er. I just feel that routine scanning at every opportunity could help maximise the benefits of the technology. I am involved in the wholesale meat business and we act as a ‘critical control point’ for tag reading and traceability. Maybe the small animal veterinary profession could help fulfil this role for pets and I would be grateful if readers could possible act on my concern.
We as a nation are, I believe, animal lovers, and anything that would cut down on the unscrupulous acts of those just seeking financial gain through stealing dogs, especially the working breeds, would be a good thing. Even if the person attending with the animal may think that they had purchased the animal legally, there is a good chance they will know who they bought it from, and the police could then get involved.
I am sure that most people like myself who have had an animal lost or stolen would gladly pay any expense incurred just to get their loved pet returned.
I can only hope that some vet somewhere will realise that my pup, which is a working cocker spaniel and is therefore legally docked, will realise that he is not in the environment she should be in and scan her, but I would rest easier if I knew that all patients went through the scanning procedure as a rule rather than an exception.
Lindsay Ayrton. Lancashire.
Reply from Chris Laurence, Chair of the Microchip Advisory Group
The Microchip Advisory Group encourages all veterinary surgeons to routinely scan new patients to check for the presence of a microchip. Not only would such a procedure assist in heart-rending cases such as the one described, it is also good practice to have patients’ microchip numbers recorded in practice management systems.
However, we also recognise the significant burden such procedures would impose on practices when less that half of dogs and even fewer cats are microchipped. Until the great majority of pets are microchipped the time spent searching for a microchip when none is present will act as a disincentive to routine scanning. The solution is at least partly in the hands of the profession – to encourage the routine microchipping of all their patience.
Chris Laurence.
Chris Gardener of St. Clement Vets in Truro, Cornwall,
With reference to the letter from Linday Ayrton (VR, July, 3 2010). I would expect any docked dog to have been chipped before being presented at the practice for vaccinations, etc., so the presence of a chip would not ring any alarm bells. In fact, it would be encouraging and I would normally enter it on the practice database for the pet. I would contact the microchip company only if the owner told me that the pet had not been chipped or it had been a stray or re homed, or there was some other reason to be suspicious of the client.
To contact the database to check the details of every new client and new pet that had been microchipped anywhere apart from the practise would entail a huge amount of work, and if all practices were to do this considerable large numbers of staff would have to be employed by the companies to deal with all the extra checks requested. This, coupled with my personal estimate that one-third of strays presented are chipped but the contact details are out of date, would suggest to me that this would be an exercise in futility. However, it may help the Government in reducing levels of unemployment by creating new jobs in the private sector to deal with all the extra work entailed in these checks.
