Microchips: Fido Once Was Lost, But Now He's Found

By Karen Springen, Newsweek, June 12 2006 edition

A few weeks ago Chelsea, a cavalier King Charles spaniel, escaped from her home. A Wayne, N.J., animal-control officer waved a scanner over a micro-chip embedded in the skin between Chelsea's shoulders--and looked up the address that matched her ID number. "Within minutes they were able to reunite her with us," says her owner, Robert Gordon, a vet who routinely inserts microchips into pets. Microchips aren't new--the technology's been around for two decades--but they've been slow to catch on in the United States. In Europe, one in four pets has been chipped; just 5 percent have in the States. Part of the problem has been that--unlike in Europe and Canada, where the devices use the same frequency--competing U.S. companies keep separate registries and require different scanners. But in July, Bayer HealthCare plans to start selling ResQ, a universal scanner that can read all brands of pet microchips. It's already shipping 20,000 free ones to shelters and pet hospitals nationwide.

Some cities are now getting involved. El Paso, Texas, just started requiring microchips in all pets; in Chicago, the city council should vote as soon as July on whether to mandate them in the city's estimated 600,000 dogs. "It is not pleasant having something the size of a grain of rice embedded under your skin," says People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals' Daphna Nachminovitch. "But it is far preferable to never being reunited with your person."