Livestock and pet microchipping is passed as a mandatory requirement for pet, kennel, stable and farm owners. The national movement ideally started with the  vision of helping cut down on euthanizing (killing) of abandoned pets put in shelters. In one county alone, close to 4,000 dogs have been euthanized while almost 9,000 pet cats were likewise "put to sleep" for the fiscal year 2006-07. Imagine how many other parts of the country surpass this figure? Better yet, how many of those euthanized were "chipped"?

The passing of the  mandatory microchipping and spay/neuter your dog campaign is said to be a deterrent in a booming pet population. This mandatory requirement gives the pet owner 30 days to comply and show proof documents. Failure to register, spay/neuter and microchip the pet means a fine that could be more than you'd be paying for the chip. Having your pet microchipped is easy, animal shelters and veterinary clinics are equipped with chips and scanners (to confirm and read the chip). Shelters and vet clinics have stock of these chips and will make a record of its unique I.D. number. Aside from the I.D. number the pet will receive, a required questionnaire is supplied; on this form the dog's history is found including medical condition of the pet and other data. As soon as the paper work is done, the shelter or vet clinic are considered the "primary contact" or go between the microchip company and pet owner. Paper work is sent to the chip manufacturer and recorded in their data base. The pet owner is provided with a card and contact number, as for the pet an i.d. tag.

Most pet owners who have complied and followed orders with their pet's welfare in mind just have one concern now:TRACING. The on-going dilemma is the assurance that when pets gone amiss, will they be returned A.S.A.P? Indicated in the mandatory microchip law is a 6 days grace period for chipped pets to be sought out by their owners or get euthanized.  Lately though, shelters, chip manufacturers vet clinics are pointing fingers as to who will take the flack for chipped pets euthanized because the owner wasn't informed? The influx of applications and registration to encode into the main memory of the chip company is just one glitch that can take pet recovery as long as a month for some not at all.

Animal Control assures pet owning citizens though that this is just a glitch and will be done as soon as the data base is complete and the registerd paperwork makes its way to them for encoding. For pet owners, a proverbial keep our "fingers crossed"  is all that is left to do and make sure not to leave poor Rover anywheres away from you.