What you need to know about Microchips

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 Any pet that travels should be microchipped for their own safety and your piece of mind. While not every destination requires dogs be microchipped, most do as part of the identification process connecting the pet to their medical records; making microchips necessary for any pet that travels. 

Microchips are usually administered by veterinarians. Small enough to be inserted subcutaneous between the shoulders, there are no batteries required and they have no moving parts. It is goes in like a vaccination. Quick, painless and easy. It's important that you have your pet microchipped (if not already microchipped) as soon as you know you are traveling. That way, time sensitive veterinary requirements can be carried out, with no wait times.

 Good practice is with each annual checkup, have the veterinarian scan for the microchip to ensure it’s still functioning. This is especially important if your dog travels across borders. If the microchip no longer works (rare) your rabies vaccination must be renewed after a new microchip has been implanted, even if the original were recent. The documents and  microchip must match up. 

While there are differences in microchips, today most are ISO compliant. (ISO - International Standards Organization) ISO scanners read a standard frequency of 134.2 kHz. Non-standard chips are read at 125 kHz or 128 kHz, which is not readable by ISO universal scanners. It is very important that the chips be ISO compliant to be recognized worldwide and scannable when going through customs. Older chips are less likely to be ISO complaiant. The most important thing you need to know is your microchip must be ISO compliant since some countries will not accept anything else. This is very important to ask your veterinarian if you are planning on bringing a dog into the United States or Europe for example, from a country with few veterinary services. If a chip is not ISO comppliant, the pet can be turned away at the border. 

 We check your pet at pickup with our ISO compliant universal scanner to ensure your pets microchip is perceptible. This scanner accompanies us incase your pets microchip is not found at your final destination by the customs microchip scanner. As long as the chip is found and recognized, your pet will be able to come through customs understanding required documents are correct. We use the AKC Reunite scanner, which is supported by the authority on dogs, the AKC-which is recognized pretty much everywhere. This is an one off the things we do to make sure your pet travels successfully.

When your pets microchip has been implanted you should register it with the registry recommended by your veterinarian. As you travel, best practises dictate that  once at your new location, discuss with a local veterinarian where you should register your dogs microchip number, incase they do not utlize your original registry. Most foreign countries have thier own registry if they indeed have one. When you register with them, use your local address and phone numbers, as well as your permanent address and phone number,  to ensure someone can reach you.  A good reason to do so is some muncipalities don't allow for international long distance calls to track pet owners down. If the pet were lost, found and scanned, it is likely the commonly used registry of the country the dog was lost in, will be contacted. If your dogs microchip were not registered with them, your pet might not get back to you. Register locally where ever you travel, if at all possible! There is no limit to the number of registries your dog can be listed with.