Looks like there is a movement to REQUIRE BY LAW that pets get ID microchip implants.

[Dover]

I heard a report today that a city near me will begin requiring them.

Apparently it's being allowed to pass under individual city laws right now.
Next perhaps it will be a state law and then federal.

If that ever comes around to my city I plan to fight it. Next they'll be putting chips
in our children (with pretty much the same safety arguments), then prisoners, patients, and other adults....it is a frighteningly small, incremental next step with huge implications. The chip companies deny this potential development but I wonder how hard they might lobby if the legislature drew up a bill forbidding their use in humans....EVER.

There is a limit to what I'll do for 'safety', and this is where I've drawn the line.

How about you?

[Joe the Liberal]

1. It's a bad idea.........

"And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name." Revelation 13:17

"He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name." Revelation 13:16-17


I want to stress I'm not religious, I'm actually an atheist, I was a believer at one point but not anymore. I just thought these quotes would be appropriate and worth mentioning for this topic. Anyways, I think micro chipping your pet should be optional and a personal choice rather than it be required by law. I can see your point though, first they start micro chipping your pets, then your children, then YOU.

There's all kinds of conspiracy theories out there on ID microchip implants. That's for another thread at another time in a different forum, plus I would have to get out the tin foil hat. :tinfoilhat:

[Dover]

2. No the quotes are not appropriate...

unless of course you are attempting, in a backhanded way, to derail this conversation by giving it the dreaded taint of 'conspiracy'.

[tencats]

3. I think I've had 8 rescue cats that had chips when they came in.

Most cats do not have an chip. In 7 years the few that have had a chip not one ever had a valid registration that could be traced back to the cats owner. I think I had only 2 that could be traced back to the original issuer, one was to a long gone animal shelter. The other one that came up I was able to contact but they had not kept a record of who had adopted the cat. In every case no one had ever sent in their information to the chip registry. Myself I have 4 cats with an implanted chip and I have not registered any. Lately I'm not sure all the cats that come in are scanned for chips, I know that half the time I haven't remembered to ask the Vet to do it anymore. I suspect that dog owners are more likely to keep their chip info current. While I can see how a city would think a law requiring that pets be chipped is a good idea, some change is needed on how the pet owner gets their info listed. I think that that owner info should be taken and sent in by the organization, Vet or who ever that issues/implants the chip. Most people seem not to care about getting their contact info on file or if they did once they are unlikely to ever update it after they have moved. I would lean to being in support of a requirement to have pets chipped. It would sure help the efforts the city department of animal control in returning our lost pets.

[Kookaburra]

4. Not for my children, but for cats and dogs not such a bad idea

Especially helpful if you have an animal that, when it escapes, really goes nuts and runs away. Would make it easier to get him or her back.

No, I don't think we'll micro-chip children or adults. I'm sure there are some folks who would advocate it, but I don't think it would ever be a law or even be advised by anyone credible.

[undeterred]

5. They had puppies at PetSmart the other day

and they were already spayed or neutered and chipped. They were also $300 which is pretty expensive for a dog without 'papers'. I guess they don't believe people are going to do it themselves after the dog is adopted.

I took my dog to get neutered and chipped when he was 6 months old. It not only costs to implant the chip, there is an annual fee. That surprised me. So what are the implications of having a chip? Will everyone get billed the annual fee? If your dog runs away will they track it back to you and fine you?

[northernlights]

15. the annual fee is by the chipping companies

they keep your information on record so if your dog disappears and is picked up, the chip can be scanned and (hopefully) current information allows them to find and notify the owner.

The chip companies are, naturally, all in favor and heavily lobbying for this.

[LeftyMom]

6. None of my cats are chipped, because none of them go out.

They all have collars and tags, which is a good enough backup for ID purposes should one of them escape. I have thought about getting the one who very rarely manages to get her collar off 'chipped, but since they only go out in the carrier on occasional chips to and from the vet, I don't see the potential risks of a foreign object under the skin being outweighed by any significant potential benefit.

My understanding is that there are also several competing chip systems and registries, and that not all chips can be read by all readers. If this were no longer the case, and a chip was at least sure to be read if somebody checked, I'd be a bit more inclined to give it a shot.

[undeterred]

9. My vet didn't tell me there were several systems.

Indoor cats who are unlikely to get out and get lost shouldn't have to be chipped. My last dog was arthritic and unlikely to leave me under any circumstances so I never had him chipped.

My puppy is totally wild, backs his head out of his collar occasionally, and jumps out of the car whenever he gets the chance... it was an easy decision.

[LeftyMom]

10. There are quite a few.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microchip_implant_(animal)#Cross-compatibility_and_Standards_Issues

My suggestion would be to ask what kind your local shelter can read, on the theory that if your pup gets loose that's where he is likely to wind up. Presumably (though it may be too much to ask) your local vets should also have the capability to read your local shelter's chip system. So absent a unified system, I'd follow their lead.

[undeterred]

12. Well, he's already got the chip-

they put it in the day he was neutered, Dec. 16. I had to fill out a registration form at the vet which included my email and mailing address, but I haven't heard anything from whichever one it was. I'll have to ask at my vet to find out the details.

[livetohike]

7. Both of my dogs are from shelters and were chipped before I

adopted them. I don't think I would have chipped them if I had a choice. From what I've read, many vet clinics, dog shelters don't even have the necessary tool to read a chip! So if a stray comes in that is chipped, who would know?

Sadly, I think we are going that way with children. Have you seen the advertisement for the GPS gizmo that is worn (I think) by a child and the parent can keep tabs on them? Today a friend from my old CA neighborhood told me of a special needs child from our neighborhood who went missing on New Year's Eve. He was found several hours later, but now his parents have given him a cell phone that has a GPS function to it, so they can call him and find him. So in a way, things are leading to the next step of a permanent chip, imo.

[Dover]

8. Yes, I think there are several indications that there are indeed plans to chip humans

for various reasons. It all seems so benign when we talk about chipping pets,
but it is that seemingly benign rationale and almost imperceptible incremental
steps that allows these things to make their way into the mainstream. Reading someone's fingerprints (now many drivers licenses require fingerprints), and optical scanners, etc. are just a couple of the things that have already come to pass. And all for greater 'security'.

So where we draw the line is very important.

[Muttocracy]

11. I'd be surprised at federal rules - most animal law is at state or local level

except for the new livestock ID program, which is meeting resistance from small farmers. I would think this would be even harder to get public support - with livestock arguments are made about tracing for food safety.

Both my dogs are microchipped. One of mine is a serious escape artist. The microchip hasn't brought him home, but it easily could have. My other dog slipped his collar on one of their shared misadventures. He was brought to the local shelter but the staff recognized him because he was adopted from there and I had given them posters with pictures. Otherwise, his chip would have done the trick with them (the shelter scans all incoming dogs).

If my dogs could speak for themselves as a child can, I wouldn't even consider it. Both of my dogs had histories as strays, so I decided to do it. In the future I might not, just depends on the dogs and our living circumstances in the future.

[BattyDem]

13. My puppy was chipped before I got him

I wouldn't have done it if I had been given the choice. As it turns out, that chip probably won't help bring him home for two reasons:

#1: Different manufacturers use different frequencies in the chips, so a vet or shelter may have a scanner that doesn't read the chip your dog has. My dog has a chip from the AKC Companion Animal Recovery system; my vet's "universal" scanner could not detect it. I've been told that the local animal shelter uses the same scanner.

#2: They are usually placed between the shoulder blades, so that's the area scanned when a dog is found. However, chips often "float" in the body, so they're not in the usual location. I found this out when my vet discovered (after an x-ray) that my dog's chip drifted to another location. He said it happens a lot, so he usually waves the scanner across a dog's entire body, just to be sure that he'll find a chip if one exists ... assuming the chip has a frequency that his scanner can read. (On edit: Thought I should mention ... my vet said that anyone scanning a pet is "advised" to scan the entire body, but that doesn't always happen. Some people are careless; some just don't know any better.)

A friend of mine did get her lost dog back because of the microchip, but even so, I don't like them. I HATE the idea of a foreign object being in my dog's body for life. :-(

[northernlights]

14. they started with livestock, including private, backyard horses

Horse owners and small farmers have been fighting it every step of the way for several years now. It started out as statewide, "voluntary" registration of your property as a farm. Then mandatory registration and chipping of each livestock animal you own. They even dreamed of every effing egg having a bar code to trace back to its farm. Very few farm owners were volunteering, even with them playing very dirty tricks. There were reports of people being contacted by "surveys" only to find their answers had been "volunteered" to the USDA!!!!

The original intent was to track food animals on factory farms, and the law was written to benefit the big factory farms and chipping companies, but included *all* livestock to the detriment of small farmers and private owners. Mad cow disease really put some impetus behind this, since it was hurting factory farm exports.

Under the law as it was written the last time I checked, we were to report *every* time our horse left our property. So if we went on a trail ride, or took our horse to the farm across the street with a riding ring, we were required by law to report it.

The final implication was and is severe -- in the event of a disease outbreak they can confiscate and kill your privately owned horse if it lives "too close" to the outbreak.

I'm quite serious. And in the horse forums, people were fighting it every step of the way. We knew the next step would be dogs and cats, pet birds, criminies your fish in an aquarium!

Our final, half-joking, rebellion that I remember discussing (in Chronical of the Horse forums) was to daily walk our horses across the street and report it, in order to complete clog and overload their effing system.

So it started as a boondoggle for big factory farms and chip companies. And no, the only end will be chipping babies at birth.