Microchipping Matters: Protecting Pets the Smart Way

Your pet’s microchip can scan perfectly and still leave us with no way to reach you. That gap shows up in the worst moments: a dog bolts after fireworks, a gate fails during a storm, or a cat slips out during a busy door-opening night and gets hurt. We’re Julie Schwenzer and Dr. Mike LoSasso from Frisco Emergency Pet Care, and we walk through what actually happens at an emergency vet hospital when a good Samaritan brings in a found pet.

We explain why microchips aren’t a magic GPS, why the chip is basically just a number, and why clinics have to call the microchip company to contact the registered owner. We also cover the real-world headaches: chips registered to a shelter instead of the current family, outdated phone numbers, pets with multiple chips after rehoming, and what it means when a microchip company shuts down. Along the way, we share an easy habit to protect your pet: pick a yearly reminder, like July 4th, and verify your microchip registration details before the next emergency.

Cats get a special spotlight, because “my cat never leaves the house” is the myth we hear right before an indoor cat becomes a mystery stray. We also cover where microchips are typically placed between the shoulder blades, how chips can migrate, and why a full-body scan matters. If you want practical, ER-tested advice on pet microchipping, microchip registration, and lost pet recovery in North Dallas, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share with a fellow pet owner, and leave a review so more families can find this guidance when every second counts.

To learn more about Frisco Emergency Pet Care visit:
https://www.FriscoEmergencyPetCare.com
Frisco Emergency Pet Care 
11201 Preston Road 
Frisco, Texas 75033 
469-287-6767 

Transcript

Welcome And What We Do

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Frisco Emergency Pet Care Podcast, your trusted source for expert insight into emergency veterinary medicine. Hosted by Dr. Mike Lasasso, Chief of Staff at Frisco Emergency Pet Care, this podcast brings you essential information to help protect the health and safety of your dogs and cats. Serving North Dallas with 24-7 emergency and critical care, the team at Frisco Emergency Pet Care is here when every second counts. Now, let's begin.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

Welcome. I'm Julie Schwenzer, co-host and producer, back with the awesome Dr. Mike Lasasso, Chief of Staff at Frisco Emergency Pet Care. Dr. Lasasso, thanks for joining us and talking about this important topic.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Good morning, Julie.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

Yes, good morning.

Why Registration Matters Most

SPEAKER_02 1:06

So, you know, pet owners are very aware of this. I think it's safe to say, but maybe they don't understand the right way to have their microchip in place. Can you explain what you deal with at your clinic?

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Sure. I mean, we don't actually implant a lot of microchips in our emergency hospital. It's really not an emergency thing, but we certainly read them quite frequently. Um, and it it does make a difference, not so much in the technique or even in the company. I mean, the challenging part is there are several companies that make microchips. There are, at least to my knowledge, there are still several different protocols with which these microchips are made. So that means that a specific reader is necessary. Now, a lot of us have got universal readers that can read multiple different kinds, and theoretically, as would be implied by that term universal, that can read all of them. The challenge isn't necessarily so much in microchipping, although that is definitely one of the hurdles. The real hurdle is getting pet owners to understand that once that microchip is implanted, you have to do the paperwork. It's not a lot, but shelters will implant chips and will give you a dog that's already got a chip and then give you some paperwork to say, hey, send this to this company because that's who we microchipped it with, and get your data associated with that chip.

Updating Info Before Disaster Strikes

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Your dog is brought in by a good Samaritan, whether he's just out wandering because your back gate blew open during a thunderstorm or because the July fireworks freaked him out and he went over the fence. He was hit by a car and he needs emergency help, and a good Samaritan brings him in. Then we scan and we find a chip and they say yes, it's registered to XYZ County Animal Shelter. That doesn't help us find owners, it doesn't help us get to use so that we can make emergency decisions. So it is frustrating that of the pets returned to animal shelters, only about 30% of them, of the ones that are microchipped, actually have current data tied to that chip. So it's a good thing to get in the habit of doing some things. Like fire departments will tell you that every July 4th you should check the batteries in your uh home smoke detectors, right? Well, maybe that same day you log on to home again or whatever your microchip company is and just verify that you didn't forget. Oh, yeah, we did change a phone number. We moved and totally forgot to update that information. It's a little bit different today now that we all carry our phone numbers with us, no matter where we go, and we we hold on to phone numbers longer than we hold on to homes. So that's a little different than it was back in my day, you know, back in the 1900s. Um but it is it's just so important to have your information associated with that microchip. Uh, otherwise, it's not very useful.

Multiple Chips And Privacy Barriers

SPEAKER_01 4:19

And the interesting thing is when we do run into dogs with multiple chips, because sometimes you have an owner who has chipped a dog, but that dog gets lost or is surrendered to a rescue for whatever reason, and maybe the people implanting that chip don't even have a reader, although I can't imagine not doing it that way, but but it's possible you don't have to have a reader to implant microchips, and so you get a second chip implanted in the same dog. So some dogs will come up with multiple microchips. Ideally, in that case, you'd kind of like both of those chips to be pointing to you if it's your dog. So um, yeah, it's totally worth it. And if you ever have any question, ask your veterinarian to scan the chip, right? And see who it comes up with. Uh, what information is there? They certainly can tell you the numbers of the chips in case there are multiples. You may still have to call the company to find out because, as the owner said, it's not like when you scan a chip, you don't get immediate access to owner information. You get a microchip number, then you have to call the company, and typically the company will call the microchip number. That creates an insulation and a barrier, you know, a protection of privacy for the people that the chip's registered to. But to my knowledge, that's the way it still works. When we when we find a chip, we've got to call the chip company to get that owner's information. It doesn't that the chip doesn't somehow flash with the owner's information because there's no way to implant that on the chip. All the chip has got is its own number. Right? It's got no battery, it has nothing, it just has this little transponder that responds to the reader. So all it comes up with is a company name and the number, and that's who you have to contact.

When A Chip Company Disappears

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Now we ran into a big problem. I'm gonna say it was last year, maybe it was the year before. One of the chip companies actually went out of business. Well, if that happens, then the microchip that's in your pet is not helpful or valid, and hopefully they informed all those folks so that they could get a second chip implanted. Otherwise, you know, you don't have that method of identification. And microchips are also useful for proving ownership. Uh, we see that in some cases where somebody will say, no, this is my dog, and you can prove that, no, actually, I had a chipped four years ago. This is very definitely mine. I don't think we run into a lot of those situations with our pets, but I'm sure that it has. Knowing people, it's come up at least once. Um you know, when we especially with livestock of poultry, I have had to do that with chickens crossing international borders that they have to be microchipped. And that microchip has to be associated not only with that bird, but with certain test results. So it can become a big deal when you're moving things across international boundaries. Uh, again, probably not such a big thing for the pet owners that are listening, but it is useful.

SPEAKER_02 7:27

So, is there a risk if there is multiple chips that that in some clinics, and I don't know if you've ever seen this happen, but like they read one chip and then they just go down that route and don't investigate if there's another one?

SPEAKER_01 7:39

I I think that there is absolutely a potential for that. I think it was a bigger potential again back in the day, back in the when microchipping was first starting to really take off in the late 90s, and you had to have you'd have a home again reader and you'd have an avid reader, and I don't even remember the names of the microchip companies. Um so sometimes those readers would say unrecognized chip, just to say that yes, there's a chip there, it's just not theirs. Some of them wouldn't read other chips at all. So, you absolutely, if you had a situation where you had multiples now, most of the emergency hospitals, the animal shelters, all the people that are routinely scanning chips. I'm sure that we're all using a so-called universal chip that will read all of the different radio protocols or however those actually work, and at least be able to identify a company and a number, regardless of whose it is.

Cats Get Lost Too

SPEAKER_02 8:41

And what about cats? Now, you've mentioned this before prior to us recording that a lot of cats aren't microchips. Now, what do you run into? What are the problems that you have with that?

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Well, I mean, the problem is people look and they say, you know, my dog, I take him out for a walk, and yeah, he's gotten out, or if he's out in the backyard when the when the gate blows open, then he'll get out. But my cat never leaves my house. Well, maybe your cat never leaves your house. And maybe he does, you know, maybe maybe we have a front door blow open, maybe we have um severe storms, they can be spooked too. You've got um Halloween, which is the number two day for dog loss. Well, a reason it's number two is because the front door is open and shut and open and shut, and they will squirt out sometimes. Sometimes we've got cats that'll do the same thing, and people assume that that cats don't they don't wander so they don't need the chip, it's just not that important. Recently, I took care of a hit-by-car cat that was brought in by a good Sam, and oddly enough, it shocked me when we found a chip in that cat. And even more surprising that it was associated with an owner, and we could actually make some medical decisions with somebody that knew where their pet was, knew what condition it was in, knew what was going on, it could be involved in the medical care when otherwise they would have just never known what happened to their cat, and we would never have known who that cat belonged to. So I would encourage everybody, whether it's a dog or a cat, to um to really consider microchipping and and updating the uh the company with your information.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Those are some great tips. I had a quick question. Where is a microchip

Placement, Migration, And Future Tech

SPEAKER_02 10:32

usually placed?

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Usually we place it in a well term I'd call the withers, but that's because I'm an old horse guy, right? Between the shoulder blades, back of the neck. It's thick skin, it doesn't hurt very much when you implant it. Really doesn't matter, but that's where almost all of us put them, so that's where almost all of us look for them. Doesn't mean they can't wander through the body over time and sometimes they'll end up down on the chest wall. They'll migrate sometimes. So we do a pretty good once-over scan just in case.

SPEAKER_02 11:01

Okay, Dr. Lasasso, thank you so much for breaking that down. I wish two vaccination records were associated with microchip records because that would be helpful as well.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

It would be amazing if there was a way for there to be some kind of two-quay communication. I'm sure we're not that far away from having that kind of technology, but then you're you're talking about being able to uh really probably to put in some kind of a database link into that, but then yeah, we've got a long way to go for medical records and and a way to link those things. But I would agree with you. That'd be lovely.

SPEAKER_02 11:37

Yeah, that'd be wonderful, especially when somebody gets hurt by a dog or something and like, hey, do I need to get a rabies shot now?

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

But um uh Dr. Lasaso, always a pleasure to talk to you. We appreciate you.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

I appreciate you. Thank you, ma'am.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Thank you for listening to the Frisco Emergency Pet Care Podcast. To learn more, visit FriscoPetER.com. Call 469-287-6767. Or stop by 11201 Preston Road, Frisco, Texas, 75033. Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Frisco Emergency Pet Care is always here when your pet needs us most. Until next time, take care of your pets, and they'll take care of you.