A Microchip Can Be a Ticket Home

A quick injection  places  a microchip under kitty's skin

Ruby getting "wanded".

A loyal warlkids reader reminded me that micro-chipping  saves lives.    A common statistic in the animal-sheltering world is that, out of the  8 million animals who end up in shelters every year, only 15-20% of dogs and less than 2% of cats are ever reunited with their guardians.  Micro-chipping can help  boost the return rate.  Every cat, dog, puppy and kitten adopted from the Washington Animal Rescue League is "chipped". The quick procedure involves inserting a tiny microchip (about the size of a grain of rice) under the animal's skin  through an injection.  The information on the chip is then  registered to the adopter or traced back to WARL.  That way, if the cat or dog  gets lost and is brought  to a shelter or animal hospital, the identification  information stored on the chip can be read and used to contact the animal's person.   The identifying information is read by a scanner/wand.  And then, everyone lives happily-ever-after!