1/3/08 Micro-Chipping Dogs

How do we protect our animals from being stolen or lost? We hot or freeze brand horses, race horses are tattooed and dogs typically micro chipped. Yet research published in veterinary and toxicology journals suggest that we might be putting our canine companions at risk through the chip implanting process. A study last year in France using 1260 white mice revealed that 4.1 percent developed tumors while a German study in 1997 cited cancers in just 1 percent of the 4,279 mice implanted. Now those don't seem like very high odds to me compared to the risk of loosing a beloved pet coupled with the fact that there are no statistics citing a rise in neck sarcomas in dogs with chips. For those of you who can't fathom micro chipping fifi tattooing is another new alternative and the nice aspect is it doesn't require anesthesia. No posies or hearts for poodles at the local tattoo parlor, dogs must be tattooed with an ID number by a certified pet tattooist then registered at the National Dog Registry or tattoo-a-pet.com