Microchip Company Ceases Operations, Pet Owners Urged To Re-Register (cbsnews.com) 34
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: Animal shelters, rescues, and veterinarian clinics around the U.S. are posting on social media telling pet owners to check their four-legged friends' microchips after learning a major microchip company [called Save This Life] is no longer providing services. [...] If you're unsure which company your cats or dogs' chips are registered with, check them. "You can go to your local veterinarian office, a local police station, or even a local animal shelter like HARP, and we can help check that for you and scan your animal. And then you take that number that's on there and there's a tool online where you can go look it up," [said Dan Cody, Executive Director of Humane Animal Rescue of Pittsburgh].
He said you check the number by using the AAHA Universal Microchip Lookup Tool at this link. If you discover your pet's microchip was registered to the company that's ceased operations, you'll need to register with a different company. "So, if you find that you are affected by this, you're going to want to go to one of these other websites that do the registrations. So, things like AKC Reunite, and PetLink. 24PetWatch these are all large companies who've been around for a long time and have good reputations," said Cody.
The American Kennel Club shared a post from its AKC Reunite Facebook page, encouraging people to enroll in microchips with AKC Reunite. The post said in part, "If your dog or cat has a microchip number that starts with 991 or 900164 then it could be a Save This Life microchip. Save This Life suddenly closed, and your pet may not be protected." Cody said if your furry best friend isn't microchipped, take them to a vet or shelter like HARP to get one implanted under their skin so they have a permanent ID. Microchipping can be done at HARP's East Side and North Side Veterinary Medical Center by appointment.
He said you check the number by using the AAHA Universal Microchip Lookup Tool at this link. If you discover your pet's microchip was registered to the company that's ceased operations, you'll need to register with a different company. "So, if you find that you are affected by this, you're going to want to go to one of these other websites that do the registrations. So, things like AKC Reunite, and PetLink. 24PetWatch these are all large companies who've been around for a long time and have good reputations," said Cody.
The American Kennel Club shared a post from its AKC Reunite Facebook page, encouraging people to enroll in microchips with AKC Reunite. The post said in part, "If your dog or cat has a microchip number that starts with 991 or 900164 then it could be a Save This Life microchip. Save This Life suddenly closed, and your pet may not be protected." Cody said if your furry best friend isn't microchipped, take them to a vet or shelter like HARP to get one implanted under their skin so they have a permanent ID. Microchipping can be done at HARP's East Side and North Side Veterinary Medical Center by appointment.
Re:Meanwhile... (Score:4, Interesting)
Any solution that involves merely having an ID number that can be used to lookup information about an owner requires some service to host that information and authenticate owners who may need/want to change that information at some point. Outside of a government entity providing this service, I'm not sure how you get around the problem. Someone needs to maintain and update the database containing owner contact information.
Re: Meanwhile... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
There's no technically reason you couldn't store ownership information on a blockchain, but good luck getting someone who found your lost pet to figure that out.
Heck, there's a campaign by the creator of the "Exploding Kittens" game to get people to put orange collars on indoor cats to make it more obvious that they're escaped pets in need of being reunited with their owners. Course, if you've ever tried to approach an unfamiliar cat it quickly becomes clear that all the collars and microchips in the world
Re: (Score:2)
Municipal and state entities would be a natural fit for this, it's in the public good to minimize stray animals and this is a pretty low-friction way to accomplish that.
Really as a city you want every pet animal chipped, it's in the public interest to have people opt-in to this so any barriers between adoption (like paying a fee to a private entity) I would consider detrimental. Most cities you are supposed to register your cats and dogs for rabies, etc, it's pretty small ask to have a chip database be a p
Re: (Score:3)
Municipal and state entities would be a natural fit for this, it's in the public good to minimize stray animals and this is a pretty low-friction way to accomplish that.
It is exactly how it's done in the few EU places I have lived in (with pets). It's like car registrations, the State mandates a registration, so it's naturally the State that hosts the database. The purpose is not only to minimize stray animals, it is also law enforcement in general. For any animal found visibly victim of abuse, harmed, dead, or damaging things, attacking people or other pets, etc., the owner can be identified easily and legal action can be taken.
I don't know how it would work in the US (yo
Re: (Score:2)
My wife, my gun and now my dog! You, sir have gone too far!
Re: (Score:3)
but that would mean if a person moved they would need a new chip.
Why not simply have redundant information on the chip?
Immutable write-once data section:
Chip number. XYZ. This is (pet name). Owners (name 1) (name 2)
As of (date) (telephone number), Address, City, State, Zip
Current information can be found at (URL)
(ED25519 Public key)
Write-only data section furnished only to the owner of the pet as a QR code during initial programming: (ED25519 Secret Key)
Read-write Mutable data section: (Any updat
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe this is one of those activities that should be handed to a non-profit that the chip companies support, which would handle all this data? Not only would it provide privacy, but also business continuity in case one of these companies falls over. This may be even something that might be better handled by government or an entity based around providing effective services and not based around the bottom line.
Even a fairly inexpensive chip fee or registration fee would be enough to keep the lights on and t
Re: (Score:2)
US Post Office would do for registry.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm assuming that the issue is that the company hosting the information for a particular ID has gone out of business.
Why is a company managing this at all? We already have experts in the field of filling databases with ID information: The government. What's one more database to them?
Re: (Score:3)
Erythrophobia: irrational fear of red (Score:5, Funny)
Not everything has to be about capitalism.
But that's communism!
Re: (Score:2)
... the rest of the world registers pet microchips directly to the pet owner. Not everything has to be about capitalism.
But... but... how do I explain the profit potential of something not about capitalism? Can we at least sell manuals on how to exploit it for profit?
The state must regulate (Score:5, Insightful)
Animal registration needs to be a state-regulated service, just like cars and marriages.
Re: (Score:3)
Animal licensing is a state-operated service, but they only issue you a badge with a number to put on your pet's collar. And you have to renew that ever year, otherwise it will expire and get expunged from their database.
The state does not offer chipping your animal or keeping a copy of that data as part of their services It's a private commercial product that costs extra money. I suppose there's a similar matter in that as pet owner it is your responsibility to make sure your registration stays
Re: (Score:3)
If marriage is not a state-sanctioned contract, then have fun dividing property in a divorce, going through probate in case of a death, getting widow's/widower's pension benefits, getting a marriage tax break, and a host of other things that go with marriage.
Re: (Score:1)
Totally private business.
Excellent, marriage becomes a civil contract where men don't pay child-support, share their pension, or pay alimony when he leaves: Really excellent, 24-hour marriage and no-fault 'divorce' with teenagers. Best of all, she keeps the pregnancy (anti-abortion law guarantees it), men keep the house and the money.
If people really believed in state's rights: They would demand civil contracts aren't enforced by the US federal government. Or, when Project 2025 is realized and the US government disappears, ma
Re: (Score:3)
Excellent, marriage becomes a civil contract where men don't pay child-support, share their pension, or pay alimony when he leaves
Civil contracts are enforceable by the courts.
Re: The state must regulate (Score:2)
Nothing is private from G-d. /s
Re: (Score:1)
People used to marry cars? I thought that was just a cheap Disney flick. Do note I found nothing in the Bible against it.
Re: The state must regulate (Score:2)
People sometimes marry dogs, so pets need to be put in the same category as cars and marriages.
Buy the database? (Score:2)
Why doesn't AKC or another buy the database from the bankruptcy manager for a few dollars and offer activation for a nominal fee?
Should be a quick and easy fundraiser and a public service.
Also curious parallels to cloud computing and IoT services. People may understand missing pets more easily than nonfunctional lightbulbs.
Re: (Score:2)
Why doesn't AKC or another buy the database from the bankruptcy manager for a few dollars and offer activation for a nominal fee?
Probably because, by the time the judge would have approved the sale, most of the customers would have already registered their pets' chips elsewhere.
Re: (Score:2)
Should be a quick and easy fundraiser and a public service.
the whole thing should be a public service. pets aren't just property, they're a liability. if the state has rules to protect pets and people from pets, as it should, it just makes sense for the state to keep track of them and their owners. it does that with a lot of stuff (cars, boats, guns, real estate ...), the db as you say is peanuts, it can even be easily taxed and there are many existing agencies that could take care of that. can't believe that this is managed by a bunch of disconnected private compa
Re: (Score:2)
Chipping your pet is right now one of the biggest scams out there. Because unfortunately, it is a scam.
Sure, it's handy - tap the neck of a pet and get their details, but did you know there are no standards? In fact, you might have to get your pet chipped again if you move, because every manufacturer uses their own proprietary method of doing it. Vets that scan often have to have multiple chip readers because they're all incompatible with each other, and if your pet uses one that they don't have, it might n
Re: Buy the database? (Score:2)
I can just hear it now (Score:2)
"They Haitians are eating the chips!"
Re: (Score:1)
Correction: "The"
Microship... (Score:2)
Damn! I read the headline and thought these guys were shutting down:
https://www.microchip.com/ [microchip.com]
It must have taken effort to bankrupt this service (Score:5, Insightful)