HomeAgain Implanted Transponder Microchips

The Howard Animal Hospital, Jeffrey Nesse, DVM is a proponent of the Schering-Plough Animal Health microchip identification system. HomeAgain microchips do not move out of place because a polypropylene shell on the tip that permanently bonds the chip to the dog’s inner tissue at the injection site.

Dr. Nesse also uses a universal scanner that can read all microchips. This scanner removed a major obstacle to widespread acceptance of pet identification. Until then, no one scanner could read the chips of all the US manufacturers, a situation that impeded efforts to involve shelters in a national effort to return stray dogs to their owners through a chip program. A found pet can be taken to The Howard Animal Hospital for scanning and saved at a rescue shelter.

Too many healthy dogs die because their owners can't find them and too many owners heartbroken at the loss of their pets. Many stray dogs wind up in rescue programs, no-kill shelters, and then they go with new owners because their original owner cannot be located.

Statewide dog license laws are supposed to help return lost dogs to their owners, but few people obey the law, and many dogs lose their collars and tags between the yard they escaped from and the truck that brings them to the shelter.

The injection process is quick and no more painful than a vaccination. The chip, about the size of a grain of rice, can't get lost or move around inside the body. The number that the chip transmits is unique so a dog’s chip number can be matched to regional or national data bases. The owner’s name and address is found and the pet can be returned quickly and safely.

If your pet has one of these microchips, you can call an 800 number to report your lost dog. Email and faxes then go out to animal hospitals world-wide with a photo, medical history and phone number associated with your pet. Scanners were also given free of charge to thousands of shelters throughout the country so quick and easy identification of dogs and cats with microchips could be achieved.

Dogs can are scanned when picked up by an animal control officer or when brought to a shelter. If a chip is present, the scanner will read the number and a shelter staff member will call the appropriate registry for the identity of the owner.