Northeast Georgia Animal Shelter Offering Low-Cost Microchipping Tuesday

We all know that annual vaccinations for our pets are an important tool for keeping them healthy and disease free.

But it’s also important to have a plan in place if they should become lost.

Tomorrow is Check the Chip Day and the Northeast Georgia Animal Shelter in Lavonia will be offering low-cost microchipping for cats and dogs from 11a to 2p and again from 5p to 7p for just $15 each.

According to the American Veterinary Association, a family pet is lost every two seconds, and one out of three pets is lost during their lifetimes.

But only one in ten is ever found.

The numbers are worrisome as more than ten million pets are lost each year.

Having your pet microchipped will help your lost pet find its way home if it’s turned in to a local animal shelter or taken to a vet by a kind person who finds it.

A microchip is a small, electronic chip enclosed in a glass cylinder that is about the same size as a grain of rice.

Once your pet is registered on the microchip manufacturer’s web site, when your pet is scanned at a shelter or vets office an ID number will show up.

When that ID number is typed into the microchip company’s web site, your name, the name of your pet, and your contact information will come up so they can call you to let you know your pet has been found.

A study of more than 7,700 stray animals at animal shelters in 23 states showed that microchipped animals are far more likely to be returned to their owners.

In that study, microchipped stray dogs were returned to their owners at more than double the overall rate for all stray dogs.

For stray cats, the difference in return rates was even more dramatic.

So if you haven’t had the opportunity to get your pet microchipped you will want to do so Tuesday for just $15 per pet at the Northeast Georgia Animal Shelter on Bear Creek Road in Lavonia.

Again you can take advantage of the low-cost microchipping from 11a to 2p and again from 5p to 7p.