A Texas microchip company has shut down leaving animal shelters and related organizations to warn pet owners to check their registrations and re-register their pets with a different service
CBS News reports that Save This Life, a microchip company based in Texas has recently ceased operations leaving the pets in their database no longer registered.
The company was integrated with the American Animal Hospital Association Universal Pet Microchip Lookup Tool, which is meant to help people reunite with lost pets, according to its website.
“The URGENT issue for you as a pet owner is that they have unlinked their database from the national registries. Currently — if your pet were to become lost, there is NO way for any shelter or veterinary hospital to find your information. You MUST register your pet’s microchip with a new company,” according to a social media post from Animal Rescuers Without Borders.
If you know what company your pet’s microchip is registered with – and it wasn’t Save This Life – then you’re in the clear. But what if you don’t know the company you used when you microchipped them? Or if they were microchipped before you adopted them?
You may have to get the chip scanned to get to the bottom of it. Your veterinarian can likely help you with this, and local animal shelters can also check.
Once you have the microchip scanned, you’ll get a 9-, 10- or 15-digit number that you can enter into the AAHA lookup tool. That will give you the company (or companies) the pet is registered with.
If you find your pet was registered with Save This Life, you may want to consider re-registering them with a different company. The concern is if they get lost, and someone were to scan their old microchip, they’d be led to contact a company that’s no longer in operation, and therefore not able to give out pet owner information.