Micro Chipping Dogs

[jhy]

Who on here knows the responsibilities that the Animal Control shelters and vets have in scanning dogs for micro chips and if they do and the dog is registered to a different person than the dog is supposed to belong to are they required by law or duty to contact the person that is registered as the dog owner under the micro chip?

Thanks,

Joey

[halfbreed]

hmmm good question i would recomend going to the american vet. assc. site . i will when i got more time this evening unless someone else beats me to an answer .

[cajunl]

I do not think it is any law or duty. I do not even know how many vets have a scanner. I would think an animal control run by the county or state would have a scanner and think they would try to find the owner of the dog.

I took a dog out of the country and had to get the dog chipped to go through customs. The country the dog was going too had a different frequency on there scanners. I had to special order a chip to match that frequency and take it to a vet and have them put it in.

So I know they are all not universal.

[halfbreed]

yeah i just looked it up on the avma site and they are not required by law  [ do to insurance liabilty's ] to get involved  but if they suspect the animal is not with the rightfull owner they can request proof from the person bringing the dog in . and can refuse service if in a non life threatening situation but that's about as far as it goes . seems like the chip sites should have a function on the chip to alert anybody scanning the dog to see if it's been stolen  .

[MrsLouisianaHogDog]

I've been a Vet Tech for years, as well as worked for county shelters back where I am from. It was always policy to scan any strays brought in immediately for a chip. We would then contact the chip company and get the registered owners information, and contact them to come retrieve the animal. If multiple attempts at contacting the owner were unsuccessful, it was then decided what to do with the dog. Every vet I have worked for had a universal scanner. I will say that if you aquire a dog from someone and the dog is already chipped, be sure to contact the chip company and give them your personal info right away.

[MrsLouisianaHogDog]

Oh, also, if you bring a dog in to the vet for whatever reason, usually they don't bother scanning a dog unless they are specifically asked to do so. If they did, the only way they'd know who the dog was registered to would be if they went and called the company.

[jhy]

The reason I ask is the local Animal Control has been harassimg me over the last year and they have not done one thing within the law and I am on their butts about it.  One of the dogs they impounded out of my yard, which was in a kennel and behind a locked gate that they had to cut the lock to go get is micro chipped.  They say they have scanned the dog and it the original owners info comes up but they never contacted them, which now the original owners are really upset because they have paid a lot of money to get their dogs micro chipped and apparently it is for nothing if the Animal Control folks are not going to contact them on this issue, who is to say that any of them will.  It backs up my claim that they are just harassing me to get us to settle on the sale of the property so they can put a road to a casino in.  It is unfortunate that Animal Control agents watch Animal Planet and think that they are some kind of super cop and can do what they see on TV.  Unfortunately for them I dont take things lying down when it comes to my dogs and I am exposing their incompetence and lack of taking the appropriate steps to do their job correctly.  The same Animal Control agency has made the news lately in my area for several abuses of power and mistreatment of animals and denying and dog to be adopted to a home and wanting to put it down instead.  I think that these Animal Control agencies should test their employees or at least their supervisors to make sure they know the local and state laws before they are hired, because they are giving badges to some unqualified people for sure and I am going to break it off in them deep!

Joey

[MrsLouisianaHogDog]

Yeah as far as shelters go.....they would get in HUGE trouble if they put down or adopted out a dog that was chipped to someone and they didn't bother contacting them....