Overview
A pet microchip is a tiny, grain-sized electronic chip implanted just under your pet’s skin, typically between the shoulder blades. It is a simple, affordable way to enhance your pet’s safety and ensure smooth travel.
What are the key benefits of pet microchip?
- Permanent identification: Unlike collars that can fall off, microchips stay with your pet for life, offering a reliable way to identify them in case they get lost.
- Travel requirements: For international travel, an ISO 11784/11785 compliant microchip is often mandatory. It can streamline travel preparations by linking your pet to their vaccination records.
- Safe return: In case your pet ends up in a shelter, a microchip helps differentiate them from strays, making it easier to return them to you and avoid potential euthanization.
- Minimal risk: The implantation process is similar to a regular injection and carries minimal risk, with serious reactions being very rare.
Contact a reliable veterinarian to get your pet checked, microchipped and registered early for peace of mind before travelling a long distance.
What is a pet microchip?
A pet microchip is a small electronic chip, about the size of a grain of rice. Each microchip carries a unique identification number.
It’s implanted just underneath the skin of your pet, often between the shoulder blades. The implantation is pain free and as invasive as a vaccination shot.
There are different types of microchips and depending on the type they can be scanned by different types of readers. We recommend getting your pet an ISO 11784/11785 compliant microchip since they are globally recognized and easily scanned by the most commonly used readers used for international travel.
For travel purposes, if your pet has another type of microchip you may become responsible for bringing an adapted reader to present for check in, boarding, and veterinary inspections during your travel. Or your pet may even be rejected from travelling.
An ISO 11784/11785 compliant microchip contains 15 digits and operates at a frequency of 134.2 kHz.
Why should I get my pet a microchip?
There are several reasons to get your pet a microchip implanted, as mentioned above, the main purpose of a microchip is to identify a pet, which in turn can help reunite a missing pet with its owners, or serve as base to prove a pet has received certain medical treatments, vaccinations, or link it to test results.
Reunite lost or stolen pets with owners
In contrast with the popular locating devices such as Airtag and SmartTag, the microchip doesn’t allow you to pin down the location of your pet, but it also can’t be removed or come off easily.
It’s a permanent identification and if you have properly registered your pet into one of the many databases with correct contact details, a vet can scan your pet, retrieve your ownership and contact you to reunite with your fur baby.
Avoid shelters and euthanization
Many of us have experienced the scare of a runaway pet, and/or losing a collar and name tag.
If you live in a country where animal control services are active such a situation can easily escalate into your pet being put in a shelter, and even euthanized if you are not able to locate it in time.
A microchip will help the ACS and shelters to differentiate your pet from other strays, and safely return it in a timely manner.
Basic requirement for international travel
If not mandatory, implanting your pet with an ISO compliant pet microchip is highly recommended if travel could ever become a possibility for you and your pet.
Once the microchip has been implanted, all medical treatments, blood tests and vaccinations can potentially count in your favour for international travel.
On the contrary, if you have an up-to-date vaccination history but no microchip, you start again from scratch with all treatments, blood tests and vaccinations that will account for travel from the moment you implant the microchip.
Implanting a microchip is a cheap and painless intervention that has many more pros than just for travel purposes. Make sure to get your pet chipped and registered from a young age.
Is it painful or dangerous for my pet?
The microchip is similar in size to a grain of rice. The veterinarian will implant it right under the skin using a hypodermic needle, and without the need for any surgery or anaesthesia. The pain would be similar to that of a regular injection.
According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, adverse reactions to microchips are uncommon, but can occur. Some of the most common side effects would be infection and swelling, microchip failure, migration of the microchip from where it was originally implanted, or in rare cases tumour formation near the implantation site.
The importance of microchipping for pet travel
As mentioned above, the microchip is either a basic requirement for pet travel, or at least highly recommended.
By basic requirement, we mean that destination countries will require the pets to be identified by an ISO microchip, airlines may do a mandatory microchip scanning before check-in or boarding, and mandatory pet travel documentation needs to have record of the pet microchip details and scanning.
But why all the fuss? Just like how we hoomans need to have passports and visas to show as identification when we travel, the microchip is the only globally recognized form of identification for a pet.
For example, to prove that a pet has received a required vaccination for example, the administering veterinarian should scan the microchip of the pet before injection, and certify that the injection was indeed given to the pet that’s travelling.
Therefore the microchip has to be implanted before any vaccination or treatment has been given, or it could have been given to any dog or cat.
What happens if my pet is not microchipped?
If your pet doesn’t have a microchip when you start planning your trip, depending on many factors it may or may not impact your travel plans.
Pet travel often seems complicated because there is no “standard” process that fits all, but several things combined will decide what your particular travel plans and preparations will look like. The most common factors are the departure and arrival country, the species and breed of your pet, and its age and medical history.
If you are unlucky, not having a microchip, or not being up-to-date on basic vaccinations can set you back several months from your initially planned travel date. And in the worst case scenario, if you still have to travel on a specific date, you’ll be faced with having to find boarding and care for your pet whilst getting ready to travel, and often also increased costs related to the actual travel.
The best way to avoid such unpleasant surprises is to proactively microchip your pet and keep it up-to-date on basic vaccinations, such as rabies and DHPP for dogs or FVRCP for cats depending on your veterinarian’s recommendations.
Also contacting a pet travel professional at an early stage (often earlier than you would expect to be necessary) can help you save a lot of trouble and money.
Or click here for a free pet travel checklist, tailored to you and your pet.
