There's no recovery period needed after microchipping. Once they leave our office, they are free to return to their regular activities.

There are no notable risks or side effects with the microchip. There may be a little bit of bleeding afterwards, but it's very rare.

Dog microchipping is similar to your everyday vaccine. It does require a slightly bigger needle size but most of the time dogs tolerate it fairly well.

Implanting a chip in a dog is a same day procedure. It's like an injection that we do right between the shoulder blades. A little piece, much like a grain of rice, is implanted underneath the skin between the shoulder blades which we scan with a microchip for your pet's identification. We always scan before implanting the microchip to ensure your pet doesn't already have one because having multiple microchips can sometimes cause confusion, especially if one belonged to a previous owner.

We try to scan them every time they're in for a visit. That's at least once a year if your cat comes in for an annual check-up. We recommend that they come in two times a year, so that's two sure times they get scanned. We also scan them if they come in due to illness. We like to keep tabs to make sure the microchips are working properly.

There's no downtime for microchipping. The cats can return to their normal activities right after having the microchip inserted.

Other than it being an injection, which could cause a bit of discomfort, there are no notable side effects. We can pick it up sometimes on an x-ray. However, we do not x-ray cats to find the microchip, we scan them. Only shelters, us, and the microchip company can get your information off a microchip.

The microchip can migrate, but if they're placed in the appropriate area, they don't tend to. However, some do migrate down on the legs or down the back. That's why we perform a scan over the whole pet before and after inserting the microchip to ensure we're not missing anything and the pet doesn't end up with two chips.

The microchip is inserted right between the shoulder blades of the cat. It does not go into a muscle but is just underneath the skin behind the neck. The microchip is inserted with a needle, which can be a little large. The cat can be awake or asleep during this process, although we recommend the latter as cats are a bit more reactive to things. We can definitely microchip your cat during other procedures if you're worried about them potentially getting out.

Often, we uncover underlying problems in our pets, especially as they age. If we diagnose a condition, such as early kidney disease, we will recommend bringing the cat back after a certain timeframe to check the values again. This is also applicable if we see an elevated liver enzyme, which might be transient and can return to normal after a couple of weeks. If we uncover something, we will follow a diagnostic pathway with you and work with you as a partner to do what's best for your pet.