How is the microchip implanted in my cat?

Well, good question. We use HomeAgain microchips. These sterile syringes come in little packages. Inside the syringe is a sterile microchip. They also give you an identification card, like a social security card, that you can keep in your wallet. We keep some of the numbers in our records, and then they also have a tag if you want to put the microchipping information on that.

What we do is we open up this sterile microchip. It's just like a syringe, as if we’re vaccinating your cat for a distemper vaccine or a rabies vaccine. We always put it between the shoulder blades at the back of the neck. We pull the skin up just a little bit. We insert it right under there while they're wide awake, just like a vaccine. It's not a surgery. And then that number has been implanted in this cat.

To check on it, we have a scanner. We have two scanners. This is a big industrial-use scanner that we use all the time. We go over to the kitty. We know where everybody places them in the same area. We scan over that area, and then the microchip number comes up, and then we know that it has a unique number. We can call the company and find out who that belongs to.

We also have this. This is a personal use scanner that people can buy at home, and the beauty of it is when we microchip your cat these days, it also will tell their body temperature. Any cat that has been vaccinated with the new microchips will not only pick up their microchip number when we scan them, but it will also tell their body temperature. So people at home might have that to be able to monitor their cat's body temperature.

To insert a cat's microchip, we use a special device and a large bore needle. We lift the cat's skin and insert the needle like an injection, but instead of delivering liquid, we're inserting a microchip. The microchip is minute, about the size of a grain of rice. Once it's inserted, we scan it with our microchip scanner to ensure it's active. It's possible for a cat to have more than one microchip. Rescues or shelters sometimes insert microchips before we get a chance to scan the cat. If we find a microchip during the scan, we report both numbers to the cat owner.

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.