The Canine Ledger

Microchips: Why Most Failures Are Paperwork

A microchip only works if the database has your current phone number. Why so many chipped dogs never get home, and the checks that take five minutes.

Written by thecanineledger

In a US study of 7,704 microchipped animals arriving at 53 animal shelters, staff couldn’t find the owners of 876. For more than a third of those, the reason was simple: “incorrect or disconnected telephone number (310 [35.4%])” (Lord et al., Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 2009, abstract).

The chip worked. The paperwork didn’t.

While microchips are one of the most effective ways to get a lost dog home, a chip is only a number. It leads back to you only if a database links that number to your current details. This page sets out what the studies found, and the checks that make a chip work.

1. Chips work, when they’re registered

The same study found that when shelters did trace owners of stray animals, dogs did better than cats: “a higher percentage of dog owners (2,191/2,956 [74.1%]) than cat owners (298/469 [63.5%]) was found.”

The authors concluded that “The high rate for return of microchipped dogs and cats to their owners supported microchipping as a valuable permanent pet identification modality; however, issues related to registration undermined its overall potential.”

Unregistered chips. When shelters contacted a microchip registry, only “1,129 (58.1%) were registered in the database.”

The other reasons owners weren’t found:

  • “owner did not return telephone calls or respond to a letter (213 [24.3%])”
  • “animal was registered to another group (151 [17.2%])”, such as a shelter or breeder that never transferred the record

Our note: This study is from US shelters in 2007–08. Registration systems have changed in many countries since.

2. How lost dogs actually get home

A 2010 US telephone survey of 1,015 households asked owners about lost pets (Weiss et al., Animals 2012). “Fourteen percent of dogs” had been lost in the previous five years, and “Ninety three percent” of those were recovered.

Most were found close to home. “For dogs, searching the neighborhood and returning on their own were the most common methods of finding the dog; 14% were found through an identification tag.” In the full results table, 49% of recovered dogs were found by searching the neighbourhood.

Only 24% of the lost dogs in the survey had a microchip. That was 2010, so the figures may look different now.

A tag and a chip do different jobs. A tag with your phone number lets a neighbour call you in minutes. A chip is permanent, but needs a scanner, usually at a vet, shelter or warden.

→ Collar or Harness: What the Pressure Studies Show

3. Reminders work

A 2018 Australian study looked at 904,909 dogs and 394,747 cats on the country’s largest microchip database (Goodwin et al., Animals 2018). It found that “email reminders increase the probability of owners updating their details on the microchip database”. The authors suggest this “could reduce the percentages of stray animals that are unclaimed and subsequently euthanized.”

4. The five-minute checks

  1. Find your dog’s chip number. It may be on your dog’s vaccination or adoption paperwork. If not, any vet can scan it.
  2. Find which database it is on, and check your details. Your phone number, address and an emergency contact.
  3. Make sure it is registered to you. If your dog came from a breeder, rescue or shelter, the record may still be in their name.
  4. Update it whenever you move or change phone number.
  5. Ask your vet to scan the chip at check-ups, to make sure it can still be read.

Our note: Steps 1, 3 and 5 are our advice, drawn from the study findings. Databases and lookup services differ by country, so we don’t name any.

Our note: Microchipping dogs is a legal requirement in some countries, including throughout the UK, and in Great Britain puppies must be chipped by eight weeks old. We haven’t checked current law for each country.

→ Preventive Care Without the Upsell: What Your Dog Actually Needs

5. What we could not verify

Commonly saidWhat we found
“My dog’s chipped, so they’ll get home”Only if the details are right. Wrong or disconnected phone numbers were the biggest single reason owners weren’t found.
“A chip is a tracker”No. It holds a number that a scanner reads. It does not show where your dog is.
“Most lost dogs are found through their chip”Not in the 2010 US survey. Most were found by searching nearby or came home on their own.
“The breeder registered it, so it’s done”Check. 17.2% of untraced animals in one study were registered to another group.

Sources

Always confirm with your vet before acting on anything on this page.