Pippa - HOME AT LAST - Reasons to Microchip by Naomi Villers

The joy and shouts of delight from owners who I told over the phone that their missing cat Pippa had been found are one of the high points of my work at Ashwood Veterinary Clinic.

On the 2nd April 2009, a member of the public phone the clinic to say they had found a young black and white cat - it had been wandering along their road for a few days and no one knew who she belonged to or whether she was a stray.

I suggested they brought that cat to the clinic during that day so we could run our microchip scanner over her to see if she was microchipped. When they arrived I took the cat and the folk who had found her to one of our consulting rooms where I ran our scanner over her.

As soon as the scanner bleeped I knew she was microchipped! 

A microchip is an implant under the skin that identifies an animal as belonging to someone in particular. Their details are registered on a national database and can be accessed by phone so missing animals can be reunited with their owners as quickly as possible. 

Pippa had been missing for over a week and her owners were overjoyed to be reunited with her again. It is very unlikely that without the microchip such a positive outcome would have been possible so quickly as Pippa had strayed to several roads away from where she lives, no one recognised her and we hadn't been made aware that she had gone missing.

The moral of this story is "Get your pet microchipped NOW"