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Ways to ID Your Pet

Ways to ID your pet ensure your beloved companion won't go missing for good. If you thought you've trained your pet well enough to never leave your side, well, you're wrong. Pets go astray for a good number of reasons, and not only because they don't like their masters. Adventure-seeking motives such as curiosity, mating urges, or boredom can induce pet separation. A frightened pet due to thunderstorms, fireworks or other sudden noises may also take a sudden flight. Moreover, lost pets do not always find their way back. Pets that have been found are not always returned due to lack of recognizable marks. Some lost pets are even kept from their rightful owners. For unexpected situations like these, owners should always be aware of the various ways to ID your pet.

A number of effective ways to ID your pet have been around for a long time. A microchip, for one, provides a permanent recognizable mark to a pet and is widely considered effective. In this method, a microchip with a unique ID number is injected under the skin. The chip is wrapped in a sturdy biocompatible glass and can easily fit into a hypodermic needle. Chips can last up to 25 years, therefore is ensured to last throughout your pet's lifetime. There is no maintenance task whatsoever involved in having your pet microchipped. A thin tissue layer surrounds a microchip and keeps it in place once injected, thus it will remain steady and cannot be passed through or out of the body. Once microchipped, pets achieve unique ways to ID your pet that cannot be lost, altered or removed intentionally.

If a pet gets lost and ends up in a shelter, the chip can be easily scanned and recognized with a microchip scanner. What the scanner does is that it sends a radio signal through the pet's skin to read the chip. The chip, in turn, sends back its number to the scanner. The pet feels nothing as the scanner is passed over him. A vet can easily perform microchipping on your pet, and when the chip is registered, information will go into a private database for easy retrieval when needed. There are a number of microchips in the market. Among these, AVID is one of the most common and cross compatible chips in the United States.

Tags and collars are also necessary ways to ID your pet. Tags and collars remain as the most easily recognizable pet identification. Nowadays, these modes of identification come in various designs and sizes, and fit a 10-character name and phone number. Nylon collars remain very popular, but there are also custom engraved plates, tracking collars, beeper collars for hunting dogs, litter collars for newborns. A pet ID card also comes as one of the effective ways to ID your pet. This wallet card for pets stores vital information, along with its veterinarian card.

Remember what most pet advocates often say, "for every pet that finds its own way home, there are thousands that do not." So unless your pet can maneuver around your city like a taxi driver does or you're a proven psychic, effective ways to ID your pet remain a requirement for safeguarding pets against getting lost for good.