Microchip implant (animal) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A microchip implant is an identifying integrated circuit

Integrated circuit

An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material...

placed under the skin of a dog

Dog

The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...

, cat

Cat

The cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...

, horse

Horse

The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

, parrot

Parrot

Parrots, also known as psittacines , are birds of the roughly 372 species in 86 genera that make up the order Psittaciformes, found in most tropical and subtropical regions. The order is subdivided into three families: the Psittacidae , the Cacatuidae and the Strigopidae...

or other animal. The chips are about the size of a large grain of rice and are based on a passive RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology.

The use of externally attached microchip devices such as RFID ear tags (piercings rather than implants) is another, related method commonly used for identifying farm and ranch animals other than horses. In some cases the external microchips may be readable on the same scanner as the implanted style.

Uses and benefits

Microchips have been particularly useful in the return of lost pet

Pet

A pet is a household animal kept for companionship and a person's enjoyment, as opposed to wild animals or to livestock, laboratory animals, working animals or sport animals, which are kept for economic or productive reasons. The most popular pets are noted for their loyal or playful...

s. They can also assist where the ownership of an animal is in dispute.

Animal shelter

Animal shelter

An animal shelter is a facility that houses homeless, lost, or abandoned animals; primarily a large variety of dogs and cats.Parrots, for example, are the third most common pet owned by people...

s and animal control centers benefit using microchip identification products by more quickly and efficiently returning pets to their owners. When a pet can be quickly matched to its owner, the shelter avoids the expense of housing, feeding, providing medical care, and outplacing or euthanizing the pet. Microchipping is becoming standard at shelters: many require all outplaced animals to receive a microchip, and provide the service as part of the adoption package. Animal-control officers are trained and equipped to scan animals.

In addition to shelters and veterinarians, microchips are used by kennel

Kennel

A kennel is the name given to any structure or shelter for dogs. A kennel is a doghouse, run, or other small structure in which a dog is kept...

s, breeders, brokers, trainers, registries, rescue group

Rescue group

An animal rescue group or animal rescue organization is dedicated to pet adoption. These groups take unwanted, abandoned, abused, or stray pets and attempt to find suitable new homes for them...

s, humane societies

Humane Society

A humane society may be a group that aims to stop human or animal suffering due to cruelty or other reasons, although in many countries, it is now used mostly for societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals...

, clinic

Clinic

A clinic is a health care facility that is primarily devoted to the care of outpatients...

s, farm

Farm

A farm is an area of land, or, for aquaculture, lake, river or sea, including various structures, devoted primarily to the practice of producing and managing food , fibres and, increasingly, fuel. It is the basic production facility in food production. Farms may be owned and operated by a single...

s, stable

Stable

A stable is a building in which livestock, especially horses, are kept. It most commonly means a building that is divided into separate stalls for individual animals...

s, animal clubs and associations, researchers, and pet store

Pet store

A pet store or pet shop is a retail business which sells different kinds of animals. Pet stores also sell pet food, supplies, and accessories....

s.

Several countries require a microchip when importing an animal to prove that the animal and the vaccination

Vaccination

Vaccination is the administration of antigenic material to stimulate the immune system of an individual to develop adaptive immunity to a disease. Vaccines can prevent or ameliorate the effects of infection by many pathogens...

record match. Microchip tagging may also be required for CITES-regulated international trade in certain rare animals: for example, Asian Arowana

Asian arowana

The Asian arowana comprises several varieties of freshwater fish in the genus Scleropages. Some sources differentiate these varieties into multiple species, while others consider the different strains to belong to a single species, Scleropages formosus...

are so tagged, in order to ensure that only captive-bred fish are imported.

System of recovery

Effective pet identification and recovery depend on the following:

A pet owner either adopts a pet at a shelter that microchips some or all adoptee animals, or the owner with an existing pet brings it to a veterinarian (or a shelter) that provides the service.
The shelter or veterinarian does a pre-scan to verify that the animal initially does not have a chip, selects a microchip from their stock, makes a note of that chip's unique ID, and then inserts the chip into the animal with a syringe. The injection requires no anesthetic.
Before sending the animal home, the vet or shelter performs a test scan on the animal. This helps ensure that the chip will be picked up by a scanner, and that its unique identifying number will be read correctly.
An enrollment form is completed with the chip number, the pet owner's contact information, the name and description of the pet, the shelter's and/or veterinarian's contact information, and an alternate emergency contact designated by the pet owner. (Some shelters or vets, however, choose to designate themselves as the primary contact, and take the responsibility of contacting the owner directly. This allows them to be kept informed about possible problems with the animals they place.) The form is then sent to a registry keeper to be entered into its database. Depending on regional custom, selected chip brand, and the pet owner's preference, this registry keeper might be the chip's manufacturer or distributor, or an independent provider. In some countries a single official national database may be used. After receiving a registration fee, the registry keeper typically provides a 24-hour, toll-free telephone service for pet recovery, good for the life of the pet. Some veterinarians do not complete the registration on the owner's behalf. In these situations, the owner must register the animal, usually through an online application. A failure to complete this step will lead to a pet whose chip can be read but whose owner cannot be contacted due to the lack of information associated to the chip's unique ID.
The pet owner is also provided the chip ID and the contact information of the recovery service. This is often in the form of a collar tag imprinted with the chip ID and the recovery service's toll-free number, to be worn by the animal along with a certified registration certificate that can be sold/transferred with the pet. This ensures proper identification when an animal is sold or traded. A microchipped animal being sold or traded without a matching certificate could be a stolen animal.
If the pet is lost or stolen, and is found by local authorities or taken to a shelter, it is scanned during intake to see if a chip exists. If one is detected, authorities need to figure out which recovery service has the owner record, because there may be several different ones, each competing for the patronage of the pet owner. (Issues and solutions dealing with the problem of multiple registries have been moved to the article Pet recovery service
Pet recovery service
A pet recovery service is a service that has been created for the specific purpose of reuniting lost or stolen pets with their owners.,,,,.-Search aids not requiring pre-arrangement:...

.) They then call the recovery service and provide them the ID number, the pet's description, and the location of the animal. If the pet is wearing the collar tag, anyone who finds the pet can call the toll-free number, making it unnecessary to involve the authorities. (The owner can also preemptively notify the recovery service directly if a pet disappears. This is useful if the pet is stolen, and is taken to a vet who scans it and checks with the recovery service.)
The recovery service notifies the owner that the pet has been found, and where to go to recover the animal.

Many veterinarians perform test scans on microchipped animals every time the animal is brought in for care. This ensures the chip still performs properly. Vets sometimes use the chip ID as the pet's ID in their databases, and print this number on all outgoing paperwork associated with its services, such as receipts, test results, vaccination certifications, and descriptions of medical or surgical procedures.

Components of a microchip

Microchips are passive, or inert, RFID devices and contain no internal power source. They are designed so that they do not act until acted upon.

Most microchips comprise three basic elements: A silicon chip (integrated circuit); a coil inductor

Inductor

An inductor is a passive two-terminal electrical component used to store energy in a magnetic field. An inductor's ability to store magnetic energy is measured by its inductance, in units of henries...

, or a core of ferrite

Ferrite (magnet)

Ferrites are chemical compounds consisting of ceramic materials with iron oxide as their principal component. Many of them are magnetic materials and they are used to make permanent magnets, ferrite cores for transformers, and in various other applications.Many ferrites are spinels with the...

wrapped in copper wire; and a capacitor

Capacitor

A capacitor is a passive two-terminal electrical component used to store energy in an electric field. The forms of practical capacitors vary widely, but all contain at least two electrical conductors separated by a dielectric ; for example, one common construction consists of metal foils separated...

. The silicon chip contains the identification number, plus electronic circuits to relay that information to the scanner. The inductor acts as a radio antenna, ready to receive electrical power from the scanner. The capacitor and inductor act as a tuner, forming an LC circuit

LC circuit

An LC circuit, also called a resonant circuit or tuned circuit, consists of an inductor, represented by the letter L, and a capacitor, represented by the letter C...

. The scanner presents an inductive field that excites the coil and charges the capacitor, which in turn energizes and powers the IC. The IC then transmits the data via the coil to the scanner.

These components are encased in a special biocompatible

Biocompatibility

Biocompatibility is related to the behavior of biomaterials in various contexts. The term may refer to specific properties of a material without specifying where or how the material is used , or to more empirical clinical success of a whole device in...

glass made from soda lime, and hermetically sealed to prevent any moisture or fluid entering the unit. Barring rare complications, dogs and cats are not affected physically or behaviorally by the presence of a chip in their bodies.

Implant location

In dog

Dog

s and cat

Cat

s, chips are usually inserted below the skin at the back of the neck, between the shoulder blades on the dorsal midline. Continental European pets may be an exception; they get the implant in the left side of the neck, according to one reference. The chip can often be manually detected by the owner by gently feeling the skin in that area. It stays in place as thin layers of connective tissue

Connective tissue

"Connective tissue" is a fibrous tissue. It is one of the four traditional classes of tissues . Connective Tissue is found throughout the body.In fact the whole framework of the skeleton and the different specialized connective tissues from the crown of the head to the toes determine the form of...

form around the biocompatible glass which encases it.

Horse

Horse

s are microchipped on the left side of the neck, half the distance between the poll and withers, and approximately one inch below the midline of the mane, into the nuchal ligament.

Bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

s' microchips are injected into their breast muscles. Because proper restraint is necessary, the operation either requires two people (an avian veterinarian

Veterinarian

A veterinary physician, colloquially called a vet, shortened from veterinarian or veterinary surgeon , is a professional who treats disease, disorder and injury in animals....

and a veterinary technician

Technician

A technician is a worker in a field of technology who is proficient in the relevant skills and techniques, with a relatively practical understanding of the theoretical principles. Experienced technicians in a specific tool domain typically have intermediate understanding of theory and expert...

), or general anesthesia

Anesthesia

Anesthesia, or anaesthesia , traditionally meant the condition of having sensation blocked or temporarily taken away...

is administered.

Animal species

Many species of animals have been microchipped, including cockatiels and other parrots, horses, llama

Llama

The llama is a South American camelid, widely used as a meat and pack animal by Andean cultures since pre-Hispanic times....

s, alpaca

Alpaca

An alpaca is a domesticated species of South American camelid. It resembles a small llama in appearance.Alpacas are kept in herds that graze on the level heights of the Andes of southern Peru, northern Bolivia, Ecuador, and northern Chile at an altitude of to above sea level, throughout the year...

s, goat

Goat

The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of...

s, sheep, miniature pig

Pig

A pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the Suidae family of even-toed ungulates. Pigs include the domestic pig, its ancestor the wild boar, and several other wild relatives...

s, rabbit

Rabbit

Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world...

s, deer

Deer

Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. Species in the Cervidae family include white-tailed deer, elk, moose, red deer, reindeer, fallow deer, roe deer and chital. Male deer of all species and female reindeer grow and shed new antlers each year...

, ferret

Ferret

The ferret is a domesticated mammal of the type Mustela putorius furo. Ferrets are sexually dimorphic predators with males being substantially larger than females. They typically have brown, black, white, or mixed fur...

s, penguins, snake

Snake

Snakes are elongate, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales...

s, lizard

Lizard

Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with nearly 3800 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica as well as most oceanic island chains...

s, alligator

Alligator

An alligator is a crocodilian in the genus Alligator of the family Alligatoridae. There are two extant alligator species: the American alligator and the Chinese alligator ....

s, turtle

Turtle

Turtles are reptiles of the order Testudines , characterised by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs that acts as a shield...

s, toad

Toad

A toad is any of a number of species of amphibians in the order Anura characterized by dry, leathery skin , short legs, and snoat-like parotoid glands...

s, frog

Frog

Frogs are amphibians in the order Anura , formerly referred to as Salientia . Most frogs are characterized by a short body, webbed digits , protruding eyes and the absence of a tail...

s, rare fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

, chimpanzees, mice

Mouse

A mouse is a small mammal belonging to the order of rodents. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse . It is also a popular pet. In some places, certain kinds of field mice are also common. This rodent is eaten by large birds such as hawks and eagles...

, and prairie dog

Prairie dog

Prairie dogs are burrowing rodents native to the grasslands of North America. There are five different species of prairie dogs: black-tailed, white-tailed, Gunnison's, Utah and Mexican prairie dogs. They are a type of ground squirrel, found in the United States, Canada and Mexico...

s -- even whale

Whale

Whale is the common name for various marine mammals of the order Cetacea. The term whale sometimes refers to all cetaceans, but more often it excludes dolphins and porpoises, which belong to suborder Odontoceti . This suborder also includes the sperm whale, killer whale, pilot whale, and beluga...

s and elephant

Elephant

Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...

s. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service uses microchipping in its research of wild bison

Bison

Members of the genus Bison are large, even-toed ungulates within the subfamily Bovinae. Two extant and four extinct species are recognized...

, black-footed ferrets, grizzly bear

Grizzly Bear

The grizzly bear , also known as the silvertip bear, the grizzly, or the North American brown bear, is a subspecies of brown bear that generally lives in the uplands of western North America...

s, elk

Red Deer

The red deer is one of the largest deer species. Depending on taxonomy, the red deer inhabits most of Europe, the Caucasus Mountains region, Asia Minor, parts of western Asia, and central Asia. It also inhabits the Atlas Mountains region between Morocco and Tunisia in northwestern Africa, being...

, white-tailed deer

White-tailed Deer

The white-tailed deer , also known as the Virginia deer or simply as the whitetail, is a medium-sized deer native to the United States , Canada, Mexico, Central America, and South America as far south as Peru...

, giant land tortoise

Tortoise

Tortoises are a family of land-dwelling reptiles of the order of turtles . Like their marine cousins, the sea turtles, tortoises are shielded from predators by a shell. The top part of the shell is the carapace, the underside is the plastron, and the two are connected by the bridge. The tortoise...

s and armadillo

Armadillo

Armadillos are New World placental mammals, known for having a leathery armor shell. Dasypodidae is the only surviving family in the order Cingulata, part of the superorder Xenarthra along with the anteaters and sloths. The word armadillo is Spanish for "little armored one"...

Worldwide use

Microchips are not in universal use, but there are legal requirements in some jurisdictions, such as the state of New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. Some countries, such as Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, require ISO-compliant microchips on dogs and cats being brought into the country, or for the person bringing the pet into the country to also bring a microchip reader that can read the non-ISO-compliant microchip.

In New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

, all dogs first registered after 1 July 2006 are to be microchipped. Farmers protested that farm dogs

Herding dog

A herding dog, also known as a stock dog or working dog, is a type of pastoral dog that either has been trained in herding or belongs to breeds developed for herding...

should be exempt, drawing a parallel to the Dog Tax War

Dog Tax War

The Dog Tax war is described by some authors as the last gasp of the 19th century wars between the Māori and the Pākehā, the British settlers of New Zealand. This is not altogether accurate in two respects. It was a very minor affair, certainly not a war...

of 1898. Farm dogs were exempted from microchipping in an amendment to the legislation passed in June 2006. A National Animal Identification and Tracing

National Animal Identification and Tracing

National Animal Identification and Tracing is a system being developed to identify and track livestock in New Zealand. The scheme is to be used for tracing the history of animals from farms to abattoirs using radio-frequency identification technology.Federated Farmers, a farming lobby group,...

scheme in New Zealand is currently being developed for tracking livestock.

Australia has a National Livestock Identification System

National Livestock Identification System

The National Livestock Identification System is a livestock identification and tracking system used in Australia.The system uses RFID devices to identify and track livestock and keeps a central electronic database of an animal’s residency and animals it has interacted with...

.

The National Animal Identification System

National Animal Identification System

The National Animal Identification System, is a government-run program in the United States intended to extend government animal health surveillance by identifying and tracking specific animals...

is used in the United States. (It is applicable to farm and ranch animals rather than dogs and cats, and in most species other than horses, an external eartag device is typically used rather than an implant microchip. Eartags with microchips or those having only a visible stamped number can be used; either way, the 15 digit numbering scheme of the ISO type microchips is followed, using the U.S. country code of 840.)

Cross-compatibility and standards issues

In most countries, ID chips used in pets follow an international standard, enabling wide compatibility between the chips and scanners. But in the U.S., three proprietary types of chips compete for market share, along with the international type. Scanner models distributed to U.S. shelters and vets well into 2006 could each read at most three of the four types. (These "types" are also known as transmission protocols or standards) But now, several scanner models with quad-read capability are available, and increasingly, vets and shelters are considering these required equipment. Older scanner models continue to be distributed, and may be in use for some time, so U.S. pet owners still face a choice of getting a chip that gets best coverage on the older style scanners in use locally, or a chip with best acceptance in international travel. The four types include:

The ISO Conformant Full Duplex type is the pet chip type with the most international acceptance, being common in many countries including those of Europe since the late 1990s, and now widely adopted in Canada. It is one of two chip protocol types (along with the "Half Duplex" type sometimes used in farm and ranch animals) which conform to International Organization for Standardization
International Organization for Standardization
The International Organization for Standardization , widely known as ISO, is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on February 23, 1947, the organization promulgates worldwide proprietary, industrial and commercial...

standards ISO 11784 and ISO 11785. To support international/multivendor application, each of these chips contains either a manufacturer code.(99 manufacturer codes from 900 to 998 are supported.) or a country code
ISO 3166-1 numeric
ISO 3166-1 numeric codes are three-digit country codes defined in ISO 3166-1, part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization , to represent countries, dependent territories, and special areas of geographical interest...

(Values below 900 are assigned as country codes.) along with its main identifying serial number.For display, typically three digits of country/manufacturer code are prefixed to twelve digits of the serial number to make a 15-digit numeric string. In the U.S., the distributing organizations that introduced this type of pet chip have faced controversy. When 24PetWatch.com in 2003 and more famously Banfield Pet Hospitals
Banfield (pet hospitals)
Banfield, the Pet Hospital is a privately owned company that operates veterinary clinics based in Portland, Oregon, United States. A subsidiary of Mars, Incorporated, Banfield owns clinics in the United States, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. Founded in 1955, the company operates many of its 700...

in 2004 began distributing them, many shelter scanners in use couldn't read them. (Some still can't; asking local shelters about this may be a good idea even today.) At least one of the Banfield-chipped pets was discovered to have been needlessly euthanized, and Americans debated the cause. Specifically, did this happen because "foreign" chips were sold to unsuspecting pet owners, or because scanners which were passed off as a Shelter-Grade product couldn't cope with "internationally standardized" chips? Or maybe both?

The Trovan Unique type is another pet chip protocol type used in U.S. pets beginning in 1990. Then, due to patent problems, Trovan's implanter device was withdrawn from distribution in the United States and they became uncommon in U.S. pets, although Trovan's original registry database "infopet.biz" remained in operation. In early 2007, the American Kennel Club
American Kennel Club
The American Kennel Club is a registry of purebred dog pedigrees in the United States. Beyond maintaining its pedigree registry, this kennel club also promotes and sanctions events for purebred dogs, including the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, an annual event which predates the official...

's chip registration database service, AKC Companion Animal Recovery Corp., "akccar.org", which had earlier been the authorized registry for HomeAgain brand chips made by Destron/Digital Angel corp., began distributing Trovan chips with a different implanter. These chips are read by the Trovan, HomeAgain (Destron Fearing), and Bayer (Black Label) readers. Despite multiple offers from Trovan to AVID to license the technology to read the Trovan chips, AVID continues to distribute readers that do not read Trovan or the ISO compliant chips.

A third type sometimes known as FECAVA type or Destron typeCuriously, an actual matching descriptive specification from the Federation of European Companion Animal Veterinary Associations, or one from Destron Corporation, remains illusive. is available under various brand names. These include, in the U.S., "Avid Eurochip", the common current 24PetWatch chips, and the original (and still popular) style of HomeAgain chips. (although on request, U.S. HomeAgain and 24Petwatch now can supply the true ISO chip instead.) Chips of this type have 10 digit [hexadecimal] chip numbers. This "FECAVA" type is readable on a wide variety of scanners in the U.S., and has been less controversial, although its level of adherence to the ISO standards is sometimes exaggerated in some descriptions. The ISO standard has an annex (appendix) describing three older chip types considered worthy of legacy support by scanners, and a 35-bit "FECAVA"/"Destron" type is one of them. The common Eurochip/HomeAgain chips don't really agree with the annex description perfectly, although the differences might be considered overlookable by some.The differences would be obvious and surmountable to someone having a specimen of the "FECAVA" chips and trying to make a scanner for them, to the extent that the Annex is still quite useful to him. (The actual "FECAVA" chip's frequency-modulated signals are completely backwards/inverted from what the Annex calls for.) But the ISO standard also makes it clearThis is found in clauses 2 and 6 of ISO 11785; the two actual conformant 64-bit types are described in clauses 6.1 and 6.2. that even chips (like the Trovan Unique chip) that do match one of the descriptions in the Annex are not "conformant"; only its 64-bit "full-duplex" and "half-duplex" types are "conformant". More visibly, the "FECAVA" type can't fit the ISO standard's required country codes or manufacturer codes. These chips, when implanted in traveling pets, may possibly be accepted by authorities in many countries where ISO chips are the norm, but not those that require literal ISO conformance.

Finally, there's the AVID brand Friendchip type, which is peculiar due to its encryption characteristics. The simple fact that a cryptographic feature is provided in a chip would not necessarily be unwelcome; few pet rescuers or humane societies would object to a chip design that outputs an ID number "in the clear" for anyone to read, and, in addition, has authentication features for use by scanners that know how to use them, for detection of counterfeit chips. But the "Friendchips" have been found lacking in actual authentication features, and rather easy to counterfeit well enough to fool the AVID scanner. Although there's no authentication encryption involved, there is obfuscation encryption, meaning decryption secrets are needed, to convert what the chip transmits into its original label ID code. Well into 2006, scanners containing the secrets were provided to the U.S. market only by AVID and Destron/Digital Angel Corp.; Destron/Digital Angel put the decryption feature in some, but not all, of its scanners possibly as early as 1996. (For years, typically its scanners distributed to shelters through HomeAgain had full decryption, while many sold to vets would just flash a message that an AVID chip had been found.) And well into 2006, both of these were resisting calls from consumers and welfare group officials to bring scanners to the U.S. shelter community combining AVID decryption capability with full ability to read ISO pet chips. Some complained that AVID itself had long marketed combination pet scanners (compatible with all common pet chips except possibly Trovan) outside the U.S., and by keeping such technology out of the U.S., it could be considered partly culpable in the missed-ISO chips problem others blamed on Banfield.Few of the petitioners bothered to ask AVID to add Trovan-chip compatibility at that time, as these chips would remain uncommon and obscure until 2007 in the U.S. In 2006, the European manufacturer Datamars, a supplier of ISO chips used by Banfield and others, gained access to the decryption secrets, and began supplying scanners using them to U.S. customers. This "Black Label" scanner was the first four-standard full-multi pet scanner in the U.S. market. Then later in 2006 Digital Angel Corp. announced it would supply a full-multi scanner in the U.S.In addition to its current scanners with full support for ISO full duplex chips, and maybe ten years production of earlier scanners with no ISO support, Destron/Digital Angel Corp. is also reported to have made in-between models circa 2006, one that gives a detection indication but no number for ISO chips, and one model that gives either simple detection or full number readout depending perhaps on the chip's manufacturer or some other factor. These models may be hard to discern without a lot of specimen chips; upgrades may be available, especially to current customer partners of HomeAgain. Finally in 2008 AVID itself announced a "breakthrough" scanner, although AVID's is still so uncommon in the field as of October 2010 that it's unclear whether it has support for the Trovan chip. Trovan itself also got the decryption technology somehow along the way, by 2006 or earlier, and now provides it in scanners distributed in the U.S. by AKC-CAR. (Some of these are quad-read, but others lack full support for the ISO chip.)

Numerous references in print state that the incompatibilities between different chip types are a matter of "frequency". One may find claims that early ISO adopters in the U.S. endangered their customers' pets by giving them ISO chips that work at a "different frequency" from the local shelter's scanner, or that the U.S. government considered forcing a change to a chip type that didn't operate at the same frequency as existing chips. The spread of these claims was little challenged by the manufacturers and distributors of the ISO chips, although later evidence suggests the claims were disinformation. In fact, all the pet chips operate slaved to the frequency of the scanner, and in practice, the ISO chips, although by design optimized to work best when given excitation energy at 134.2 kilohertz, have quite good readability working with 125 kilohertz excitation. Likewise, the "125 kilohertz" chip types are readable at 134.2 kilohertz. Confirmation of this comes from government filings which indicate that the supposed "multi-frequency" scanners now commonly available are really single-frequency scanners (each operating at 125 or 134.2 kHz, or an in-between frequency like 128 kHz.) In particular, the U.S. HomeAgain scanner didn't really change its excitation frequency when ISO-read capability was added; it's still a single frequency, 125 kHz scanner.

Banfield Pet Hospitals for a length of time advocated and practiced double chipping with both ISO and "FECAVA" type chips. (By December 2009 they had switched back to ISO-only.) A consequence of an animal having multiple chips for any reason, whether by design or by oversight, is that, since typical shelter scanners stop scanning after finding one chip,It might be argued that Shelter-Grade scanners shouldn't do this. and "Which one" can't be predicted, all of an animal's chip numbers need to be kept on file and address-updated with an appropriate database keeper for life. Presumably Banfield's enrollment forms had a space for "second chip number." The on-line enrollment forms of most registries could use some improvement in this regard. For best protection, the owner of multi-chipped pet may want to have each chip separately enrolled in its most customary or manufacturer-provided registry.

Scanner Compatibility table for chip types used in pets
	Expected results for chip type (OK=Good read NR=No read DO=Detect Only with no number given)
Scanner to test	ISO Conformant Full Duplex chip	AVID Encrypted "FriendChip"	Original U.S. HomeAgain, AVID Eurochip,A mention of a chip type called "AVID Travelchip" has been removed from this heading. It appears that "Travelchip" was actually a trademark not of AVID itself but of a chip distributor, which used it as a blanket term for several different chip types sold in value-added kits- firstly AVID Eurochips, later HomeAgain types both regular and ISO. or FECAVA	"Trovan Unique" and current AKC CAR chips
Minimal ISO Conformant Scanner (also must read HALF Duplex chips common in livestock ear tags)	OK	NR	NR	NR
AVID Basic U.S. Scanner	NR	OK	NR	NR
AVID Deluxe U.S. Scanner	NR	OK	OK	NR
AVID Universal Scanner sold outside U.S.	OK	OK	OK	NR Assumed
AVID MiniTracker Pro Scanner announced August 2008	OK	OK	OK	NR according to some (Few have seen one.)
Various vintages of U.S. HomeAgain "Universal" Shelter Scanners by Destron/Digital Angel Corp.	NR,DO, or OK	OK	OK	Possibly all OK
Typical Destron/Digital Angel Corp. U.S. Vet's scanner pre-2007	NR	DO	OK	DO
Trovan LID-560-MULTI per mfr. specs on Web	OK	OK	OK	OK
U.S. Trovan Pocket Scanner per AKC-CAR Web Site	DO	OK	OK	OK
U.S. Trovan ProScan700 per AKC-CAR Web Site	OK	OK	OK	OK
Original 2006 Datamars Black Label Scanner	OK	OK	OK	OK but Reliability Questioned
Datamars Black Label Scanner "classypets" model	OK	NR or DO?	OK	OK but Reliability Questioned
Banfield-Distributed 2004-2005 Vintage Datamars Scanners	OK	Possibly all DO	OK	Possibly all OK but Reliability Questioned (Undocumented Feature)
Datamars Minimax and Micromax	OK	NR	NR	NR
Typical Homemade Scanner	OK	OK but extra step required (web-based decryption service)	OK	OK

(For users requiring Shelter-Grade certainty, this table is not a substitute for testing the scanner with a set of specimen chips. One study cites problems with certain Trovan chips on the Datamars Black Label scanner. In general the study found none of the tested scanners to read all four standards without some deficiency. The study predates the most recent scanner models, however.)

Reported adverse reactions

RFID chips are used in animal research, and tumors at the site of implantation have been reported in laboratory mice and rats. Noted veterinary associations responded with continued support for the procedure as reasonably safe for cats and dogs, pointing to rates of serious complications on the order of one in a million in the U.K., which has a system for tracking such adverse reactions and has chipped over 3.7 million pet dogs. A recent study found no safety concerns for microchipped animals with RFID chips undergoing MRI

Magnetic resonance imaging

Magnetic resonance imaging , nuclear magnetic resonance imaging , or magnetic resonance tomography is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to visualize detailed internal structures...

at one Tesla

Tesla (unit)

The tesla is the SI derived unit of magnetic field B . One tesla is equal to one weber per square meter, and it was defined in 1960 in honour of the inventor, physicist, and electrical engineer Nikola Tesla...

External links

A1 ID Systems: Manufacturer of microchip identification for animals.
Lost Pet Found After 13 Years (Apparently the current record for this type of story)
Microchip Frequently Asked Questions
Petlog

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