AKC's CAR brings dogs Home Again
One of the biggest reasons animals die in shelters is because their owners
can't find them.
By Norma Bennett Woolf
Dogs escape, lose their collars or tags, and often travel far from home on
their own or with help, so owners often have no clue where to look. Dogs may
wind up in shelters far from home or they may be taken in by Good Samaritans
who have no clue about getting the dog back home. But the American Kennel Club
has a CAR that can help. It's the latest model complete with 24-hour service,
a website, and a hotline, and it's a lifesaver. This CAR is the Companion Animal
Recovery program, AKC's partnership with Schering-Plough Animal Health that
installs microchips under the skin and enrolls the chip number in a data base,
making it possible to identify any animal and many inanimate possessions with
an injection and an enrollment fee. Dubbed "Home Again," the microchips are
the size of a grain of rice and have an imbedded number unique to each chip.
The chips are injected under the skin above the shoulders of the animals by
a veterinarian and held in place by a special nontoxic bonding agent. The owner
receives a card with the microchip number and a collar tag for each dog. The
cost of implant is up to the veterinarian; the cost of enrollment is $12.50
without a discount coupon. CAR will also replace lost collar tags.
Microchips have been available for several years, but until the development
of a universal scanner that reads all available chips, many shelters were reluctant
to scan incoming pets, offer microchip clinics to the public, or install chips
in adopted animals. In addition, stories about the chips moving under the skin
after injection were bandied about. Then came two breakthroughs: Schering-Plough
and microchip company Destron Fearing introduced a new chip held in place by
a bio-glue and in 1996 came up with a universal scanner.
In 1995, AKC became the registrar for the Schering Plough Home Again microchip
system. And along with registering animals chipped through the Home Again program,
CAR also accepted enrollment of any animal identified with a chip or tattoos.
By September 11, 1995, 10,000 animals were enrolled, and the number topped 325,000
by the end of 1998.
Getting scanners in the hands of those who deal with runaway dogs was crucial,
so CAR gave them away.
"I am proud to announce that Companion Animal Recovery has spent well over
half a million dollars to help provide full-service shelters in America with
a universal scanner at no cost to them," said CAR president and chief executive
officer Dr. Carmen Battaglia in the foundation's 1998 annual report. CAR has
distributed more than 15,000 scanners to veterinarians, shelters, humane societies,
and rescue groups, and gives special rates for enrollment of animals chipped
at shelters. The foundation also promotes Home Again with discount coupons for
enrollment, and special programs for shelters, assistance dogs, and the military.
With these tools, more and more shelters scanned dogs picked up as strays,
and the calls poured into the CAR office. The first call for a lost dog came
in on June 1, 1995; since then CAR has taken more than 140,000 calls and successfully
reunited more than 14,500 pets with their owners - a 100 percent success rate
for pets enrolled in the database.
With 268,131 individuals enrolled, dogs are the most common animals in the
CAR data base. Cats are next with 56,245. Some of the more unusual animals in
the data base are mice (2), kangaroo (1), elk (2), cow (1), and seal (1). There's
also a saddle.
The most common lost dog returned home is the Labrador Retriever (2760), followed
by Siberian Husky (989), Golden Retriever, (920), German Shepherd Dog (874),
and Rottweiler (575). California has had the most recoveries (1969), followed
by Arizona (1410), Florida (1186), Texas (1118), and Minnesota (972). Information
about the CAR program is on the AKC website (www.akc.org).
The recovery hotline is (800) 252-7894. And the found animal e-mail address
is found@akc.org.
In the CAR 1998 annual report, Battaglia said that the current pace of development
will continue.
"Our goal is to rid the fear from every neighborhood that a lost pet may not
return home. I am pleased with our program and its progress. Dramatic results
are now beginning to be realized."
What you can do:
- Microchip your pets to increase chances you can get them back if they stray.
- Take found pets to a veterinarian to be scanned for a chip.
- Make sure the local shelter is scanning incoming animals.
- Contact CAR to set up a chip clinic at a dog or cat show, community event,
or shelter.
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