Peircing/tattooing your pet cruel?

[Emeraldgreen]

The tattoos here in B.C. are a combination of letters and numbers. Each year the BCVMA chooses a letter that will be used and the other letter is one that is specific for each clinic. The numbers are chosen numerically so on January first, the first tattoo at a clinic might be JF001 (the letter J would be a clinic if that was their letter and the letter F would be the 2008 letter provided by the BCVMA, not sure what letter they are going with, just using that as an example and the number 001 would reflect the first patient being tattooed at that clinic in 2008. The books the BCVMA distributes to all the clinics each new year has all the clinics letter combinations so tattoo letters can be easily looked up to locate the hospital. There is also a section with the letters of clinics in nearby provinces, or at least there used to be.
If a person moves and changes their phone number, they just need to provide the new phone number to the hospital or shelter that did the tattoo so they can update the records.
I agree, tattooing a phone number on a pet would be a big commitment and because phone numbers so often change, probably not a good idea.

[Giselle]

Okay, I stand corrected: GREYHOUND ear tattoos are the ones I was talking about - special tool puncturing holes and rubbing dye into the holes. I watched a little video on how people do contemporary identification tattoos on a dog, and it's actually very similar to human tattoos. *shrugs* I think the greyhound ear tats are quicker and less painful in that sense.

And, the microchip needle is HUGE. I don't know what company you (in Canada) use, but both HomeAgain and ResQ have huge needles. After the microchip is inserted, you have to hold the flap of skin shut to avoid letting the microchip slip back out. My dogs didn't have a problem with it, but I've seen other dogs/cats who have. I do think a lot of it has to do with the individual animal's pain tolerance.

[Emeraldgreen]

One of the companies that I am familiar with is AVID. I looked at their site just now and the needle is listed as a 12 gauge needle. Looking at the photo of the needle, it is the one used at the clinic and it definitely is bigger than a vaccine syringe and I think you're right Giselle, it would depend on the pain tolerance of the animal. What I remember is that there wasn't any yelping or painful noises coming from the animals and there wasn't any sedation used or glue and it was all done so quickly, all within less than a minute that maybe it just appeared to be relatively painfree but just because it was fast and quiet should not be an indicator for pain and I could be completely wrong. In any case, I don't like animals to suffer, not even for a moment and there is no way I can honestly know what that needle would feel like and I'm sure it would hurt like hell if I got a shot with it. Most of my pets have tattooes instead of microchips that they received while they were already under anesthesia for spay/neuter. It's quite a bit cheaper than the microchip and reasonably effective here in B.C.
I guess my main objective is to help animals get back home when they're lost because of my work in that area for the past 3 years and the microchip is a tool to help with that but for smaller pets, and who knows, maybe all pets, it may be an uncomfortable option. As mentioned before, I hope they will come up with a teenie chip that will be virtually painless. That would be great.

[IRescue452]

Tatoos might have different systems that not all can read, but at least on immediate sight you can tell that the animal had an owner once and/or was altered. A facility can read microchips because they own the machine, but a regular person who finds the dog doesn't own the equipment to reada chip. A tattoo is a major identification mark visible to all.