Chipping alone is useless!

Most dog and cat owners are familiar with it: Getting your pet chipped. Having a chip is mandatory for a dog, but not yet for cats.

You may think that your dog will never run away or that your cat is always indoors. But an accident happens quickly. An animal may be startled by sudden fireworks or someone may accidentally leave a door or window open. Another dog chases yours or a cat experiences something outside that causes him to flee. Or suppose you have a car accident that causes your animal to escape…

Many pets are still missing and the chip can provide a solution, is the thought.

But is chipping alone enough? New!

Without proper registration, your pet only has a chip with numbers. If your animal is found and it is scanned with a chip reader, then that chip cannot be found anywhere in a database and you as the owner cannot be reached. As a team, we regularly run into this problem. As a result, if your pet needs help, it will be taken to a shelter by the animal ambulance and it will not come home immediately. You will then also receive costs for the animal ambulance or the shelter.

Very occasionally it is possible to obtain information about an unregistered chip in other ways. We regularly do this detective work as a team and also have this as a service, but it can take days, if not weeks. While it is so easy to prevent! The vet / breeder / foundation or the shelter arranges the registration, right?

New! Although most organizations do (want to) arrange the registration for you, it is unfortunately not yet a standard procedure. You therefore always remain responsible for proper registration of the chip!

How can you register the chip yourself?

You may have received papers from the agency where your animal comes from (a shelter, foundation, etc.) with login details for a database. Then use the information from the letter. Do you not have chip papers or have you lost them? Then choose a database online, create an account. Fill in the details, pay a small amount and you're done! Here you can read exactly where you need to be.

Keep the data up to date!

Do you have a new phone number? Did you move? Does your animal have a new home? Don't forget to change the registration details! It prevents that you cannot be reached because your telephone number is no longer correct.

Does a chip that is not (properly) registered often occur?

Yes, unfortunately... and we find the numbers quite shocking. In 2019, we scanned more than 300 dogs with our free chip check campaigns. More than 40% of these had something wrong with the chip registration! This means that the chip is not or not properly registered. Nevertheless, the majority of the owners indicated in advance that everything would be correct. And this only concerned dogs, for which chipping is mandatory. It is therefore no superfluous luxury that we pay extra attention to it!

How do you check the chip registration?

Are you now curious whether everything is correct with your chipped pet(s)? Look up the chip number (this is usually in the passport or in adoption/breeder papers) and enter it on the Chipnummer.nl website to check it.

Where can I find more information?

The National Information Center for Companion Animals has an extensive website with all information about chipping and proper registration. You can read all about it here.

Questions or need help?