I'd love to answer that, yes, but unfortunately, the answer is no. Why? Because it's not a tracking device. If the cat shows up at somebody else's house and they say, "Oh, look at this cute little kitty," and they just take him, it doesn’t mean they're bad people. But if they never take the cat to a vet or a shelter, they have no way to know that the cat belonged to someone else before. Unfortunately, microchipping doesn't guarantee you'll get the cat back, but I would certainly say that it will increase the odds that you will get them back.

Most veterinarians nowadays have that. The technology's changed a lot in the 20 or so years. When microchipping was first invented, whatever brand of chip was implanted, you'd have to have their scanner to detect it. So you could have a scanner for brand A, and that cat was microchipped with brand B, and it wasn’t going to pick it up. Thankfully, it's not like that anymore. Now, they have universal scanners that can detect any make and model of chip, making it quick and easy to identify.

I think I can safely say yes, but I don't work in shelters, so I don't know how they operate. That is absolutely what they should be doing. Every animal that is picked up should be scanned when it gets back to the shelter and, if so, it's not all that difficult to find your information, as I just mentioned, and to reunite that cat with their owner.

Unfortunately, no. To know a location, we would have to have some sort of a GPS device or signal. This is different—microchips use what's called R-F-I-D, Radio Frequency Identification. What this means is that when the chip is scanned, it sends a very quick signal to the reader, and it is just a unique number— usually a 16 or so digit number. And if you’ve taken the time to register that microchip and you linked your contact information to it, then you will have your cat returned to you. Any time that number is scanned, it will allow us as veterinarians or employees at animal control to pull up your information, so that we can call you and say, "Hey, we have Fluffy at our clinic," and that's how you're reunited. Unfortunately, it’s not a GPS though.

The simple answer to that one is that it can help reunite you with your cat. If your cat ever becomes lost, microchipping is one of the most dependable ways to identify who the cat is and who it belongs to, and reunite the owner with the cat.