There is nothing more distressing than losing a pet. You search the streets for hours, even days. You tack up posters. You offer rewards. You wait by the phone in the hope that someone, somewhere, has not only found your pet, but has somehow managed to find you as well. The reality is, however, that most of these efforts will be in vain. Just over 2% of lost cats and 15% of lost dogs ever find their way home. Fortunately, these numbers are changing. Thanks to current technologies, it is now possible to provide your pet with a means of identification far superior to the name written on their collar. Microchips are becoming an increasingly popular way to help lost pets get found.

A microchip is about the size and shape of a grain of rice. It is implanted underneath your pet's skin   between the shoulder blades during a process similar to a vaccination. Each microchip is encoded with unique information about your pet. This information corresponds to data in a national database. Veterinary hospitals and animal shelters across the country are equipped with special scanners capable of detecting and reading microchips. If your pet is lost, his or her microchip is scanned and the information is used to reunite you and your best friend.

Coral Breeze Animal Hospital uses the ResQ microchip. ResQ provides an inexpensive lifetime registration with its information database. It is an international microchip (ISO standard), which allows for easy travel into other countries. Please visit www.petlink.net and http://www.avma.org/issues/microchipping for more information regarding microchipping.