[kala]

From my experience working at a shelter, the chip is more likely to get the dog home if lost. Unfortunately our workers don't look for tatoos on a regular basis. We've caught a couple but tracing them is a problem.

When dogs come in to our shelter, owned, stray, or injured one of the first things we do is scan for a chip. We use the AVID scanner and it picks up AVID, Homeagain, 24hour, and one or two others. As the animals move through the system they are scanned again with a universal scanner also. We've caught Euro chips, and others. The one thing owners seem to forget though is to keep the info updated.

We've returned pets to the original owners after years of being gone. People do find pets and keep them, and later maybe surrender them to a shelter. At that time the person who the chip is registered to is called and have the option of getting the pet back.

One of the most touching stories from our shelter is an older Border Collie mix that was brought in for euthanasia. The owner said they had the dog for a few years and she was old and it was time to PTS. We scanned the dog and the chip was registered to someone else. We called that person who said the dog had went missing two years earlier and she would come down to get the dog. The next Christmas she came in with the old dog to make a donation to us for saving her dog and reuniting them. Oh, an the dog wasn't sick or anything that jusitified the PTS, just a 10 year old dog that the person thought was done. I don't know if that dog is still alive, but if she isn't, she did get to live with her original owner for the last years of her life. That person never gave up and kept her info updated with the chip company.
sue