Please microchip your pets - it works!

[QuietTiger]

Long story short, a good friend had her cat go missing last November. She tried absolutely everything to find him, posters, flyers, the lot. He was micro-chipped.

This morning (4 months later), she had a phone call from a vet 15 miles away on the other side of the city to where her cat went missing. He had been taken in to be neutered as a stray, the vet had discovered he'd already been done, scanned him, found he was chipped, checked with the microchip company and the result is he's heading home to my friend this evening. She is picking him up after work and is utterly over the moon with delight that he has been found safe and well. :)

Absolute PROOF that microchips can and do work to get lost animals home.

yeessss..... a bit like my friend's cat Ian. They didn't realise he belonged to someone in the street behind until some enterprising young buck of a vet scanned him EIGHT YEARS after they'd adopted him as a stray... there was a dilemma...

Yes - My friend's cat was found 10 miles away 2 months after he went missing. He was traced back to her by his chip.

Easter there is no dilemma a microchip is a proof of ownership the RCVS are very clear to vets in this situation the vets needs to notify the people who had the microchip implanted.
Whenever you find a stray cat you should always take it to be scanned around 50% of cats presented to us like this have chips and we returned them to there owners.
My current records are 4 years after loss and 60 miles from home.
The really frustrating time is when we scan a cat it has a chip, but the owners have moved and not changed their details with the chip database.

It's worth asking the vet to check the chip is working when you take them in for, say, vaccinations. The chip in one of my cats failed so it would have been no use at all.

I think the major companies will replace for free if that happens? Good tip to have the chip checked at MOTs though.

Yes, I think they do.

She was teeny tiny at the time and still ill from cat flu so it kind of never got followed up - it failed very soon after I got her. As she never wandered far from home at all, I didn't bother getting it redone.

Ah that's lovely news OP so pleased for your friend

Aw this gives me hope. Lost my cat in 2009, he was chipped but despite extensive, bordering on obsessive, searching for him, he just disappeared into thin air. Still makes me really sad to this day.

Maybe though one day the phone will ring my other cat will be right pissed off

Maybe it will. It doesn't mean you have to have him back - if he's got a really nice new home, say, but it would be nice to know.