What microchip company do you use?

The state of the microchip mess.

We came across this forum thread discussing the issues with finding your pet's microchip database and found this a good time to talk about issues with multiple microchip databases.

Lets start with a clear example of the complexity of the problem:

Lets say you wanted to find the owner of a car through the cars license plate number. Lets also say that the State of California had seven (7) different, independent, competitive DMV offices all which contained different locations, hours and contact information. How would you find the right database?


Here is some basic background on the current state of the microchip mess:

1. There are a total of seven (7) microchip databases in the U.S.
   
   • HomeAgain
   • AVID
   • 24PetWatch
   • AKCCAR
   • PetLink
   • ResQ (Bayer)
   • Banfield
     
2. Each database produces their own brand of microchip to sell.
3. There are 3 different microchip frequencies 125kHz, 128kHz and 134.2kHz.
4. Some AVID microchips are encrypted (requiring a special licensed scanner to read them).
5. To retreiving your pets microchip number you must have access to a RFID scanner.
6. Some scanners will only scan and read just a few brands/types of microchips while others are truly Universal Scanners.
7. Some studies show that 60-85% of microchips are unregistered or have out-of-date information - rendering them useless.
8. Your pets microchip is only as good as the database's information. 
9. and finally... each database will register any competitor's microchip.

The question "Which microchip company do you use" is an interesting question for a pet owner. Our studies show that 97% of pet owners do not know which database their pet is registered with.

For information on your pets microchip, see here. We hope this helps!