Your Pet’s Microchip May Not Work Now
After a national pet microchip and registration company shut down, pet owners are being encouraged to reregister their pet’s microchip.
The Texas-based microchip and registration company Save This Life went inactive, according to Texas tax records. Calls to the phone number listed on its website lead to an out of service message. Pets listed on Save This Life’s pet registry were delisted from the American Animal Hospital Association’s national database.
The American Animal Hospital Association keeps a central database of all the chip numbers. But pets registered through Save This Life aren’t in it anymore.
The good news is your pet’s microchip is fine. You just have to re-register it through another company. A few do it for free. Others charge around $20.
Your vet might have your pet’s chip number on file, or they can scan it. If you have it written down, you can check it yourself at AAHA.org. All the bad chips start with one of these two numbers: 991 or 900164.
A pet microchip, about the size of a large grain of rice, uses passive radio-frequency identification (RFID). When lost pets are brought to shelters, a scanner can get the information on the microchip and allow the shelter workers to identify the pet owner.
Pet owners can check with their veterinarian, many of whom have scanners and records of the pet’s microchip.
While Save This Life has gone dark, the microchip would still work. That number can be registered in more than one database.
