Verify your microchip. They can fail.

Whenever you visit the vet, verify your microchip. Gwynnie's chip was NOT detected by the scanner today. Al's chip was immediately detected, but they scanned Gwynnie's whole body carefully (they can migrate) and found no signal.

She's 8 y.o. We have no idea how long this situation has existed. Her first chip fell out soon after insertion; my wife noticed it emerging from the insertion site. It was replaced. The second chip either fell out or failed; if she's ever X-rayed, it'll be interesting if it shows up.

Home Again customer service (quite helpful) told me to take her to the vet and the chip will be replaced free of charge. Good for them. The rep told me that failures are mostly caused by the chip falling out, and rarely by failure of the chip itself.

These chips are passive. They have no battery. They receive enough energy from the scanner to transmit their information back to the scanner.

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Permalink Reply by Jennifer Markley on April 27, 2011 at 3:08pm

That's a great post John!! I registered Jackson's after we got him last fall from Jane, and I got a call from the company about a month ago saying that there was a mix-up on his number. Evidently he and another dog from California had the same number registered. Ends up it was the dog in CA that was wrong, but we had to do some triple checking to get it straightened out.

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Permalink Reply by Ollie & Prie Misra on April 27, 2011 at 8:51pm

thanks for that John! I wouldn't have even thought about it but will have it checked in a few weeks when we go in for boosters!

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Permalink Reply by Steve on April 27, 2011 at 10:07pm

Thanks for the info John. I sometimes wondered if his microchip is still in place or detectable so I'll get it checked this weekend when he goes to the vet for his shots.

Hmmm, I wonder what happened to Gwynnie's chip?

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Permalink Reply by Karen Dadisman on April 27, 2011 at 10:17pm

She's a corgi, she probably ate it!!

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Permalink Reply by Tori on April 28, 2011 at 12:07am

Thanks for the heads up. Winston needs his booster next month so I'll have them check his microchip. I bet Karen is right, I'll bet she just ate the chip! Haha.