Chips vs. tattoos

[Louisa]

Is there one or the other you recommend? Any difference at all other than the chip has an additional registration fee? All of mine are chipped except the baby of the gang who was scheduled to be chipped and fixed awhile back and the clinic closed due to inclement weather and we are approaching our rescheduled appt day on Feb 11th. (everyone else is done) ... I'm leaning toward a tattoo for this one. Anyone else do this?

[BEAU]

All of ours have been chipped in the past.
Is there some central place that tracks the tattoos?
That's what I'd be worried about. Who would know how to find you based on the tattoo? Unless it was your name and phone number?! 
I guess I don't know much about them.
We bought an old animal/pet tattoo kit at a rummage sale for collectibility purposes as Sav collects tattoo stuff... and it was a scary old thing!

[Louisa]

Eww! Any old kit like that sounds scary! Eek! Anything old and creepy like that bugs me probably  because it brings back memories of the stories I heard when my sister worked at Torrance mental hospital and she told me of old stuff like that they had for patients.

Anywho, its actually a number that you register with the state just like a lifetime dog license number. The vet told me today that I would get the certificate/paper from the local courthouse and bring it to them.  Then I guess they confirm it and tattoo the number on. So its not an outside company, its governmental which is a little more secure in my thoughts, but then again I'm not sure. I'd rather rely on a secure system like lifetime state license/tattoo than home again or whoever does the chips but who knows... Maybe they would be more reliable. That's why I'm kinda wondering which way to go -- my ultimate goal obviously is to have the most secure, reliable way of getting him back if anything ever happened. I was told at the clinic that they prefer tattoo because its visible right on the dog and any person can see it... If say someone found the dog, its an easy visual ID versus having to scan to see. Idk...

[TherapyGolden]

I've never heard of a dog tattoo being licensed by the state. Do you have any more info about that? My new German Shepherd has a tattoo, many of the GSD breeders use tattoos... However if the tattoo is on the thigh/stomach it may be difficult to find (not visible) because of being covered in fur or people might not notice it if they find the dog. My dog was tattooed but the tattoo was not registered anywhere as far as I know so it would not have done much good. I had her microchipped after I adopted her and had both the tattoo and microchipped registered with AKC's CAR (Companion Animal Recovery) registry. There are also other registries for tattoos like Tattoo-a-pet and and NDR but I have never heard of a state registered dog tattoos before...

[Louisa]

Yep I'm reading it right from the paper from the vet clinic... Quote "tattoos are applied under general anesthesia and require paperwork that must be picked up at the Tresurer's Office and brought to us on the appointment date. The Permanent Identification Form must be returned to the courthouse within one month of the procedure for it to be considered valid." Its considered a lifetime dog license/ID here in pa,where you only have to register one time to license the dog, I don't know if other states do that. My doctor said it would be on his inner back thigh where a lot of dogs especially very short haired like mine have the smallest amount of hair, and it would be 100% visible. At least on my dog, as he has almost naked skin from the top of inside his thigh inward in his boy area. I thought most dogs were like this but I haven't owned a longer haired breed in a long time so not sure about visibility on the inner thigh?

[Louisa]

That surfaces another question for me... If you're able to take any tattoo or chip and register it with any organization like CAR for example, how would the person or shelter who found the dog be able to know which of the bunch of companies that it was registered with? I guess maybe that's why I am leaning toward the local thing with the lifetime license tattoo... There's not various companies to muck with and the dog pound might be more familiar with a state/local issued ID?  How do they know where to contact for the owners info? Does it come up on the scanner with the company name or does the shelter have to have a scanner from that specific company in order to pick up the chip? That would worry me.

[Marge]

Is there one or the other you recommend? Any difference at all other than the chip has an additional registration fee? All of mine are chipped except the baby of the gang who was scheduled to be chipped and fixed awhile back and the clinic closed due to inclement weather and we are approaching our rescheduled appt day on Feb 11th. (everyone else is done) ... I'm leaning toward a tattoo for this one. Anyone else do this?

I've done both over the years.  We also did our own tattoos, so whether they have to be done by a vet may depend on the state.  Our current dogs (up to age 10 are all chipped) our last tattooed dog died earlier this year.

Tattoo's are done typically on the inner right thigh.  They have the advantage of being visible identification making the animal less desirable to thieves.  The disadvantage to tattoos is that many shelter workers are not going to be willing to turn a strange dog over on it's back to look for it.

Chips are about the size of a grain of rice and are implanted under the skin at the shoulders.  Early chips had problems with migration and sometimes moved to areas of the body where they presented problems such as an elbow joint.  The newer chips have much improved designs, where migration is much less of a problem.  My own experience has been that none of the chips we've had implanted have migrated.  There were also problems with the early chips where the readers were specific to the brand of chip, and if the shelters in your area didn't have the compatible reader a dog might not show up as chipped even if it was.  Newer readers will read any brand chip, or at least show that a chip is there even if it can't read it so the shelter would know the dog is chipped.

The location of the chips in the shoulders makes it an easy location for shelter workers to scan and get the identification info.  That is assuming they scan the dog.  It's a much more common practice these days but sometimes they don't.  If it ever went to court the chip documentation would prove who a particular dog belonged to, at least at the time the chip was implanted.

Some of the chips can be tracked through the manufacturer.  They know which lots (and numbers) were sold to which distributers.  The distributers in turn know who they sold the lots too.  Whether, a vet a shelter a rescue group, individual etc.  And they can be tracked that way, though it takes longer.

I can tell you that the Home Again chip and the CAR system do work.  About 5 years ago now, I came home to find two calls on phone.  One was from a person who said they had my dog "buddy" and the second was from the AKC telling me that "buddy" had been found.  Now, at the time I didn't have a "buddy".  We had a dog by that name a few years before but had sold him as a pet to someone fairly local.  I checked my records and found the contact info for the new owner.  I called them up and gave them the information I had gotten from the CAR rep and the person that had "buddy".  It seems the grandma in the house had accidently let "buddy" out and he took off.  Someone a few blocks away found him, saw the tag on his collar with the CAR contact info and called them.  They in turn called me as I was still the name registered with CAR.  In this particular case CAR was contacted before the owner even knew the dog was missing.  And it took only a few hours for them to have their dog back.

If possible I would suggest to do both a chip and a tattoo.  That way you get the benefits of both.

Marge

[BEAU]

It sounds like they are well set up for the tattoos in your area.
If you are considering the chips, just make sure they have the readers there too.
Since we moved to this area the vets around here do not have readers. They must cost a lot or something, so we haven't been able to even have the chips checked in several years. In the past we had them checked at each vet visit.

[TherapyGolden]

Actually I found out that Ginger had a second migrated chip when she was x-rayed last fall. She was scanned when I first had her microchipped and they didn't find the chip already there, I guess because it had migrated way down her side by her front leg. My vet just opened her clinic this fall when we saw it on the x-ray so she didn't have a scanner yet. I was going to have them scan it later but that was right before she got really sick...

I read something from one of the organizations that register tattoos. They recommended registering with a national company because if your dog is registered locally and then they end up lost outside of your area no one will know to contact your local registry. A lot of dogs who are lost end up hundreds of miles away.

[Louisa]

How scary to think of them ending up so far away. I agree Marge as I was reading all this I thought more and more of doing both. But that chip migration sounds bad, there's not really anything I can do now for the girls but I want to avoid another one if its a problem... Can that hurt them? Could it interfere with a muscle or even organ or lungs? Or is it not deep enough? That's a little scary. I think I'm definitely going to do the tattoo on him and am contemplating the chip too? I wonder what migration could do, worst case scenario. And I would think they would provide scanners at decent costs since they make money off the chips and registration but I guess not geez. 

[BEAU]

The chips go just under the skin, above the muscle tissue. That is why they can migrate. They don't usually, but it's possible. They go just between the shoulder blades. They are so small, they don't usually have a problem with it. It's similar to receiving an injection.

[Savage]

The old tattoo a pet kit we picked up had the registration forms to send it to some national registration center or something like that. My Problem is..the kits are so crappy, and unless you know how to tattoo, your not going to make a tattoo thats readable unless the number/letters are HUGE.
 On another note, if someone stole your dog, and it was tattooed, theres nothing from stopping them from tattooing over the ID tattoo making it impossible to prove who's dog it is.
They chip on the other hand will always have the information that nobody can change.
It's quick, painless for the most part to the animals, and worth every cent...even if you have to have another one done due to it migrating.
 You also don't have to worry about how your dog will respond to being knocked out or tranquilized during the tattoo process.
 Also, Tattoos don't always heal in well, especially if you have a Dog licking it contantly. They do spread making them hard to see or read, and most of the tattoo ink that go with the kits is really low quality india ink.
 Only reason I'd tattoo one of my dogs is so they can show up a cool tattoo!
Don't worry, thats never going to happen.
I Vote CHIP over Tattoo.

[saucyaussies]

If someone's going to go to the trouble of tatooing over a tattoo, they're gonna cut the chip out too. 

Up here tattoos are tracked by CKC if reg'd and if a vet does them, the number tracks back to the vet adn then they have a registry of their clients. 

Many, if not most chips that come up on foudn animals have out of date information, so if you're gonna chip, keep the info up todate.  I've chipped once, now I just go wtih breeder tattoo.

[Marge]

If someone's going to go to the trouble of tatooing over a tattoo, they're gonna cut the chip out too. 

Up here tattoos are tracked by CKC if reg'd and if a vet does them, the number tracks back to the vet adn then they have a registry of their clients. 

Many, if not most chips that come up on foudn animals have out of date information, so if you're gonna chip, keep the info up todate.  I've chipped once, now I just go wtih breeder tattoo.

Not to mention that it would take months for the new tattoo not to be obvious compared to the old one, and no one who is going to steal a dog is going to hold on to it for that long.

Marge

[TherapyGolden]

My German Shepherd was supposed to be CKC registered so I think that is why she is tattooed... They had problems with the breeder though-- she told them the dog would be AKC but didn't give them the reg. forms, then finally after a long time sent them the paperwork but it was Canadian Kennel Club paperwork with the wrong tattoo number!

As for the microchip migration, I don't know if they all do this but I know at least some of the manufacturers now make the chips with a special coating to encourage adherence which helps prevent migration. It is mostly the older chips that have problems with migrating.