Saturday’s earthquake in Christchurch has highlighted the need to include your pets in your emergency plans.

Canterbury SPCA has been fielding huge numbers of calls from people whose pets fled during the quake and have not yet returned home. Whilst this in itself must be hugely distressing for those affected, for many it will be even harder to bear because a number of those animals will not have any means of identification.

 

Wellington SPCA strongly advises that microchipping your cat, dog, rabbit, guinea pig etc can save huge amounts of  time, expense and emotional stress if it goes missing – and not just in case of an emergency or disaster. A microchip means that if an animal is found, it can be scanned and consequently reunited with its owner much more quickly.

 

It is also very important to remember to make sure that the microchip is registered on the appropriate database, for example the New Zealand Companion Animal Register, and that your contact details are accurate and kept up-to-date.

 

Making sure that your dog wears a collar and its registration tag at all times is also crucial to enabling identification to occur quickly and easily.

 

To put it all into context, between July 2009 and June 2010, 2,265 stray and lost cats and kittens were brought into Wellington SPCA – of these, only 205 were reclaimed. With the projected number of lost or stray animals being brought into Wellington SPCA over the next year set to be just short of 4,000, reuniting as many of them with their owners as possible is crucial.

 

Microchipping also has hugely beneficial cost implications to us as a charity. Chipped stray or lost animals need remain in our care for significantly shorter periods of time than those whose owners cannot be easily traced.

If you need to get your pet microchippped, or would like more information, please call us on 04 389 8044.