Sadly, once a pet is lost, the odds are against her finding her way home again. According to the American Humane Association, only about seventeen percent of lost dogs and two percent of cats ever find their way back from shelters to their original owners. Almost 20 million pets are euthanized every year because their owners can't be found. There are ways to beat these odds though, and they're a little higher-tech than the nametag and collar you're used to. To give your pet the best chance to be identified, no matter how far he roams, have him implanted with a microchip.
Tags can fade, rust, or get scratched and be impossible to read.
Collars can tear or slip off, or even worse, get caught on something while your pet is wandering in the wilderness and hurt or kill him. Then the number on the computer chip is entered in an international database, like the Central Animal Registry or PETtrac. If your dog or cat is found, any animal hospital, shelter, or humane society can use a microchip reader to read the unique ID number contained on the chip. The veterinarian or worker then calls the database, or accesses it on the computer, and enters the number given off by the microchip. The database matches the number to your name and phone number.