Why is it important to have your pets micro-chipped?

Listen to Laura Johnson’s radio interview with Dr. Bobbi Kotrba from Craven Animal Hospital airing on New Bern News Talk Radio Station WNOS or listen below to learn more:

Here’s what Dr. Kotrba had to say about microchips for your pets…

Microchips are the only permanent way to identify a pet. You can have a collar on them, but they can get lost or taken off. Sometimes they are hard to read because they wear. People think about tattooing their pets, but it’s hard to decide what to tattoo. Phone numbers and addresses change, you don’t want to put your SSN on your pet. If you put an AKC number on the pet, nobody knows what that is. So the only way to permanently identify your pet is to put a microchip in them.

Microchips are fairly painless. It’s a larger gauge needle as the chip itself is the size of a grain of rice. It’s not harmful, it’s not toxic, and there’s no long term damage from the chip.

It’s a wonderful way to keep track if they get lost. When you register them, you can also identify if they have any health concerns. If they were to be picked up by a shelter or turned in someplace, they could quickly identify if there’s any health concerns, medications, or issues that the pet may have.

We microchip all ages. We do dogs and cats and can actually microchip birds, ferrets, or any pets you may have. It’s not species specific. We do encourage bird owners to get them because they tend to think they can’t fly, until they go outside with them and the bird flies away.

Every shelter and clinic should have a microchip reader. It’s pretty universal, it doesn’t matter what brand of microchip you use. It usually comes up with the ID and a phone number for the clinic that purchased the chip or for the family.

In September and different months throughout the year, Craven Animal Hospital offers discounts to make it more affordable for people. The cost of the chip isn’t universal; it depends on the type the clinics are using.

There’s also ISO chips which they do use, as a lot of military families are required to have chips that are internationally recognized so that’s what an ISO chip is.

For more information about microchips, please visit Craven Animal Hospital at 1003 Hwy 70E, check out their website and Facebook page, or call 252-637-4541.

Special thanks to Dr. Bobbi Kotrba for taking the time to share this information with us and the Craven Animal Hospital Team for taking care of New Bern Now’s mascot, Boo!

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