Nimsy, a three-year-old black Domestic Shorthair cat, came into Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region’s (HSPPR) doors after a good Samaritan noticed them wandering around without a home. HSPPR staff scanned Nimsy for a microchip and found good news! She did in fact have a microchip with a phone number that popped up. After speaking with Nimsy’s parents, it was revealed that Nimsy went missing three weeks prior and somehow traveled 170 miles from their home in Northern Colorado. Shocked and excited, Nimsy’s family made the long drive to HSPPR and were reunited with their sweet cat thanks to a current microchip!
National Check the Chip Day is this August, and HSPPR wants to remind pet owners of the importance of microchipping your pet and keeping your information up to date.
According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, one in three family pets will get lost at some point in their life, and only six out of every ten microchips are registered with the pet owner’s information. Microchipped dogs are more than twice as likely to be returned to their owners, and microchipped cats are more than 20 times as likely to be reunited with their family.
A microchip is a permanent form of identification should your pet get away and lose their collar or tags. Every pet that comes into HSPPR is immediately scanned for a microchip in hopes of quickly finding their owners and returning them home. But many times, owners forget to update their contact information when they move or get a new phone number.
What are the first steps pet owners should take when your pet goes missing?
- Search for your pet online. Check our online database to see if your pet has already been found. You can search photos of pets at the shelter and pets picked up and temporarily housed by good Samaritans if they completed a found report.
- Submit a lost pet report and visit the shelter. Completing a lost report every 10 days while your pet is missing will refresh your lost report in search results. We strongly encourage you to come to the shelter and walk through the kennels as well.
- Update your pet’s microchip contact information. If your pet is microchipped, make sure your contact information is up to date with the microchip registry. Not sure which registry to contact? If you have your microchip number, you can re-register it here with our friends at Found Animals.
