IDTags vs. Microchips - Which will prevail?

01 October 2009

Pet identification tags are becoming a thing of the future, often leaving pet parents wondering if their pet really needs a microchip.

All pets should wear identification tags at all times. IDTag's should include a local contact number, as well as a number for a friend or out-of-town relative. Proper identification tags are your pet's first ticket home if he becomes lost. While microchips add an extra level of security when your pet becomes separated from his tags and collar, today, pet identification tags have increased in levels of technology.

Currently, pet identification tags are the latest and most advanced source to finding your pet today that is relatively foolproof. For example, unlike other standard tags, IDtag.com pet tags are so advanced they are linked to an online platform using a unique serial number, making the engraving of "stagnant" owner information obsolete. With futuristic pet identification tags, like IDtag.com, it offers online access to your personal pet and owner profile, instant lost-pet alerts to shelters and 24-hour emergency customer support. Using these futuristic tags, your pet's description, photos, videos and health information can be stored in your personalized secure online profile along with the primary, secondary and tertiary emergency contact information of your choosing as well as keeping your pet and contact information up-to-date from anywhere at any time.

Whether it is standard or futuristic pet identification tags, pet parents are looking for the most viable and safest method to protect and find their pet. On the contrary, according to The Humane Society of the United States, some implanted microchips to find pets may be useless because of a lack of scanners available today. Each company that manufactures microchips has its own scanners, and some of these scanners can only read their own microchip. In other words, microchips that came into use in late 2003 are generally not readable by most shelters and veterinarians because the chips require different scanning technology. Microchip manufacturers have not yet provided shelters around the country with a scanner that reads all different types of microchips (called a "universal" scanner), according to The Humane Society of the United States. Thus, microchips may not be the most practical method to find our lost pets without a universal scanner in place.

The use of pet identification tags may prevail over microchips; it may only be a matter of time for the futuristic identification tag to prove itself.