New microchips in pets means changes for some

PALMER — So you’ve found a lost dog and want to get it back where it belongs. Where do you go?

The veterinarian’s office? Maybe, but maybe not.

Any dog or cat coming out of the Mat-Su Borough’s animal shelter has to have a microchip implanted under its skin. A lot of vets have scanners on hand to help get those lost animals home. But slowly and steadily, many of those scanners are becoming obsolete in the Valley.

About a year ago, shelter veterinarian Katrina Zwolinski said, the shelter switched to a new kind of chip. It’s part of a move to get a standard microchip format used universally. Humane societies and veterinarians have settled on a type of chip called an ISO to be that universal standard.

So, essentially, the borough’s shelter followed suit. Which means there has been a steady increase in Valley pets carrying ISO chips.

But that also means that a lot of vets’ old-style scanners, while easily able to identify the old chips, can’t pick up those new ISO chips, said Sharon Sweeney, technician with the Wasilla Veterinary Clinic. A new scanner costs hundreds of dollars.

“Most of us aren’t going to go out and buy new scanners,” she said.

It’s not a big deal, she said. A good Samaritan may end up making a couple of trips to try and get a lost pet home. But people should be aware that if a vet can’t find a microchip that doesn’t mean the animal doesn’t have one.

Zwolinski said the shelter didn’t have to do very much to make the switch. It was already using universal chip scanners so the old scanners work just fine with the new chips. The universal scanners were a good investment even then, she said.

“We were picking up chips that were from overseas and that would have been missed if we weren’t using those universal scanners,” she said.

Aside from bringing the borough into the established universal standard, the new chips have other benefits — most notably that they come pre-registered.

It used to be, Zwolinski said, that, “You’d send the owner home and say, ‘Now contact the company and pay $15 to $25 to get your name registered.’”

People who didn’t take that extra step because it cost a fee missed out. The central database means a person’s name is tied to his or her pet even when moving out of state or going on vacation.

“That really helps us if the owner travels around anywhere,” she said.

People who pick up lost dogs can bring them to the shelter to get identified if the vet’s office can’t help. Asked why people would go to the vet instead of the shelter, Zwolinski said that’s more than likely due to some misperceptions on the part of the public.

“Sometimes people don’t bring it to us because they’re afraid that we’ll make them leave it there, which we don’t,” Zwolinski said. Even people who know the shelter’s policy sometimes hesitate. “They don’t want the dog anywhere near the pound.”

And then there are those who might not know to check for a chip.

“A lot of times people don’t even think to bring them to the vet to have them scanned,” Zwolinski said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.