Microchips for pets are about the size of a rice grain and are placed beneath the skin at a specific point by injection. Encoded on a the chip is a specific code number unique to the pet which is registered along with details of it's breed, sex, age and most importantly the owners name, address and telephone numbers.

The main benefit of having them are that should your pet ever be lost or a dispute over ownership arise there is a quick and reliable way to establish the rightful owner. Pets can stray out of a garden when a gate is left open or it they manage to scale the wall or fence; they may be distracted on a walk and disappear away after wildlife or with other pets; sometimes they are injured while out on their own and may be brought to a vets surgery or an ISPCA shelter. In all these situations the quicker the owner can be reunited with the pet the less stress the pet will suffer. It is also very frustrating for Vets to have an animal brought in having been found wandering and having no way of identifying it although it may obviously be someone's well loved pet.

An identity disc or tag can do the same job but a collar or disc can fall off or be removed and over years the writing or engraving tends to wear and become difficult to read.

Information on the microchip can only be read with a special scanner which all the ISPCA shelters and vets are equipped with and every lost animal is checked for the presence of a microchip. A combination of a microchip and an identity tag is probably the best solution to the problem.

Another reason to consider micro chipping a pet would be is someone was considering availing of the new passports for pets scheme which has recently become an option under a pilot scheme basis. One of the first things that must be done is to have a microchip implanted so it may give someone one less thing to do under the scheme while stll giving the benefits mentioned above.