Check your chips

[Cinder & Smoke]

Note:

The problem isn't that the ResQ microchips don't "work" ...
the real problem is that there are not enough READERS in use at Animal Control,
Rescues, Shelters and Vets to insure that a lost pet will ever be successfully *scanned*
and looked up in the ResQ data base.

Beware of Petlink ResQ microchips.
They are made by Bayer and are
starting to show up all over the country. People are reporting problems
with their record keeping, dogs being registered to someone other than
the owner who filled out the registration. But that it not the biggest
problem.

Bayer / Petlink ResQ are selling ISO chips here in the US that almost none of the
shelters/rescues/ vets scanners can read, but they aren't telling people
about this issue.

ISO chips are the standard in Europe and now Canada, but NOT here in the US.
ISO standard ... uses a completely different radio frequency than used here in the US.

So called universal scanners that can scan both the US standard and the ISO standard
just aren't available, at least not ones that work.

Pretty much all current American scanners can read all American standard chips,
no matter what brand ... But they can't read ISO chips.
All American standard chips, regardless of brand operate on the same radio frequency.
ISO chips are on a different frequency
and so they can't be read by normal scanners here in the US.

Eventually the US will transition over to the ISO chips, but that has been planned
to be a slow process, allowing the industry to develop reliable, low cost scanners,
get them disseminated to all the groups/agencies that need them, and then slowly
transition over as pets with the American standard chips start to die out.
The reason for this is so that the infrastructure to support the new ISO standard
is firmly in place before the ISO chips are made available, and so that all the thousands of pets
currently chipped with American standard chips will continue to be safe.
Rushing this process is irresponsible and dangerous.
If you think your dog is safer because he has a chip,
if that chip is an ISO chip sold by ResQ/Bayer or 24petwatch/Banfield,
you may find out the hard way that you were sold a useless product.

As of now, 24petwatch and Banfield sell American standard chips here in the US,
so ResQ/Bayer is the only company I know of trying to scam their customers
by selling them ISO chips without explaining what that entails.
--
/s/ Marc Sayer
My Homepage - http://gracieland. org

Oh no!! Zoee has a resQ chip.

I had it tested at my vets office and it scanned fine.

Should I be worried?? What should I do?
Or should I just have them scan her everytime I take her to the vet?

Zoee's VET must have a Reader that will *read* the ResQ chip ...
Zoee is safe IF she gets 'lost' in her VET's office ... their reader will read her chip.

The serious QUESTION is: if she get's lost out in the big/bad world -
will Animal Control, a Rescue, a Shelter, or another Vet have the proper Reader
to read and decode her ResQ chip??
IF the organization the attempts to scan & read her uses a Scanner/Reader that
DOESN'T activate her ResQ chip - the operator will not get any indication that
the animal he/she is scanning has any chip implanted ... they will incorrectly
assume they've just scanned a NON-chipped stray.

Bottom Line is:
Unless an entire region has standardized on one or two of the similar microchips,
and has saturated ALL Animal Controls, Rescues, Shelters, and Vets with
readers that
are KNOWN to positively identify the chips used in the area ...
Microchipping a pet is a VERY hit & miss proposition.

[Catlady711]

You must have an older email forward there because to my knowledge sometime in '06 or '07 Bayer came out with a universal reader as did many of the other main microchip companies. Avid being the only one holding out on making a universal scanner.

Where I work we use the Home Again microchips with the newer ISO frequency and have their universal scanner. We've not had any problems reading chips from other companies from rescue dogs, etc. where we are told they have a microchip from another company.



http://avmajournals.avma.org/doi/abs...ma.233.11.1729 (Dec. '08 scanner study)



http://www.dolittler.com/2009/01/12 (more detail on study linked to above)

Scanners:

• Bayer: For detecting and reading 125 kHz encrypted and unencrypted), 128 kHz and 134.2 kHz microchips.

• HomeAgain: Same as Bayer’s detecting and reading mix.

• AKC-CAR: For detecting all three frequencies but can only actually read the 125 kHz and 128 kHz varieties.

• Avid: This 125 kHz scanner can detect and reading all encrypted and unencrypted chips at this frequency. It is not a universal scanner.

Results (in a nutshell):

• HomeAgain’s scanner won for overall sensitivity at 93.6 to 98.4% across all six microchip types.
• The Bayer scanner did next best at over 97% for four chips but only about 90% for the more popular 125 kHz chips.
• AKC-CAR’s did over 95% for the 128 and 134.2 kHz chips but lost big at 66-75% for the 125 kHz chips.
• Avid scored as well as HomeAgain on the one frequency it could read, at >97%.