Are there any risks or side effects associated with the dog microchipping process?

I haven't seen anything. I've never seen where it developed tumors, or where it migrated. These guys are designed so that they don't migrate through the dog, and they stay pretty close to exactly where we put it. The dogs don't vomit or throw up or anything like that when they have had a vaccine. I haven't seen any side effects from it.

Well, we've poked your dog, so perhaps they’re a little bit traumatized from that. But as I said, most of them tolerate it very well. The biggest risk is to have a microchip move from the normal location. It's not a frequent occurrence but possible. And so we always want to ensure that we are scanning the entire dog. Another risk that we can have is that that microchip does actually migrate into places that it shouldn't be. It's very rare, but we may see the chip migrate into the spinal cord itself. And so it has been shown to cause some problems there. And then obviously if your dog were to need to have any procedures or anything done in that area and the microchip could possibly inadvertently be removed or we could even see the actual chip cause a reaction. But again, those are all very rare side effects.

In my 11 years of being a veterinarian, and another eight years as a veterinary technician, I've only ever seen one case of a side effect. This was when a dog's body formed a small hard nodule around the microchip, and we had to remove it. Otherwise, the risk of side effects are super low. The microchips are made from a material that the body's not going to react with, much like how gold or platinum is hypoallergenic.

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.

Really, no risks. Sometimes we'll get some temporary bleeding where we implant the microchip just because we're putting a needle through the skin. But besides a little bit of blood that will clot up really quickly, there are really no contraindications or complications from implanting a microchip.