New Zealand Dog News

Reviewing the dog news in New Zealand with editors comments. Someone needs to keep reviewing how our dogs are doing in society.

November 21, 2010

Solution to lost quake pets

Hundreds of pets still missing after the Canterbury earthquake could have been reunited with their owners had they been microchipped, says an SPCA manager.

About 600 animals have been reported missing to SPCA Canterbury since the September 4 earthquake, but only 260 had since returned home. For the same period last year only 150 animals were reported lost.
SPCA Canterbury centre manager Geoff Sutton said people who were still missing pets could have had them back by now if their animals had been microchipped.

"Every single one of the animals who came here and had a microchip with data that was current had been reunited with their owner," he said.

Which leads me to wonder why do dogs then need a green tag on them!  I would have thought that the tag was for reunification, but it's becoming clear to me it's another money venture. In other parts of the world, the price of registration is nil, or very very low. 

"It's a once in a lifetime cost, not like a vaccination that's once a year."
(...)  "You'll be reunited very quickly, especially if an animal has been sick or injured and it turns up on the vet's doorstep ... one of the first things they do is scan for a microchip."

And for some people, they might not want to be reunited especially if the vet bill is quite high. I'm not encouraging this behaviour, only trying to see some other's people points of view. 
"Irresponsible owners" might just be poor owners, but again, microchipping isn't the most expensive thing that you can do for your dog.

Microchips were just as important for cats as dogs.
"Cats, of course, are very much free-ranging animals."

Of course, I don't understand why cats shouldn't have to be registered as well. Their 'free-ranging' lifestyle is the reason for a lot of bird deaths..

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