Quote Originally Posted by Sharon_FL View Post
So in tattooing.... you just put phone numbers on the dog? Wouldn't the belly area be real sensitive? How long does it take? I have never had a tattoo, but I have heard they can be a bit painful on humans. Do the dogs mind it as much as humans? My Lily, I THINK is a real drama queen, so she would probably act like she was being slaughtered... *sigh*... I wonder how many finders of dogs look for tattoos? Who does these tattoos? The vet or a real tattoo artist?
The number that goes on the dog depends. For my puppies, because they are CKC registered, they need get a designated CKC number on their belly. It starts with the number/letter code that CKC gave my kennel, the puppy's number in order (of how many puppies I've bred), and the letter for that year.
If the dog isn't registered, or didn't get tattooed by the breeder, then usually the vet will do it, and the vet uses their own designated code. They can be done by anyoen though. I've had pups done by the vet, a tattoo artist, and a local breeder. The local breeder does the best job, the quickest job, and is the least expensive. The tattoo artist was terrible and the tattoos needed to be re-done.
In the past we've had three tattooed dogs come in (in the old grooming parlour I worked at).. Two of them had CKC tattoos so it was really easy to track them. We just called CKC, and they were able to tell us immediatly who the breeder and owner/s were. One was tattooed by the local animal control, so that was easy as well. I'm not sure how easy it would be if the dog came from another province or out of country. I imagine there must be some sort of database but I'm not 100% sure of who you'd call if the tattoo was from another country.
Re pain -- I put some numbing cream on their belly area so it doesn't bother them as much. Depending on the puppy he/she might squirm or cry, but mostly it's because I have dominant little puppies that don't like to be held down lol. After it's done, they don't even look at their belly -- no licking or scratching. It's like it never happened. That's one thing I didn't like about microchipping.. It took several days before anyone was able to touch my puppies around their neck/head without them freaking out. I felt terrible. It didn't help that the vet tech did NOT know what she was doing and my poor puppies suffered for it because she was incompetent.. I was so angry. My breeder friend said the same thing -- It took her a few litters to find a vet who microchips well, in a manner that is less upsetting to the puppy. I'm sure if I chipped with my regular vet that I wouldn't have had nearly as bad an experience, but she doesn't carry the ISO chips that CKC requires.