Agenda

Return

City Council Regular Meeting

Meeting Date:

03/24/2020

BACKGROUND

The current trend, state wide, is going away from annual licensing and issued metal "dog tags" and moving toward mandatory micro chipping in pets. Metal tags are essentially 19th century technology, which can come off, get lost or be switched between animals. A microchip is implanted under the skin and is always with the animal. A mandatory micro chipping ordinance is the best possible way to ensure a lost pet is reunited with its owner. Every animal that comes in to Schertz Animal Services is scanned for a microchip. When a chip is found, staff can contact the registration company and get the owner's name, the pets name, age, as well as the phone number, address and even the email of the owner. This is the most effective and efficient way to reunite lost pets with their owners, which has already been adopted by many large municipalities such as the City of San Antonio. This ordinance was presented to the Animal Advisory Board at the quarterly meeting on February 5, 2020, and received the support of the Advisory Board.

The community benefit is having the ability to quickly reunite pets with their owners. The Animal Services shelter and vehicles are equipped with a microchip scanners, allowing staff to scan for microchips. This provides the potential for pets to be returned to their owners quickly, therefore reducing animal population at the shelter. When animal population is reduced in the shelter, overall operational costs are also reduced. This ordinance also removes the requirement for pet owners to make annual visits to Animal Services to renew a license. Microchips are done once and remain for the life of the animal.

Schertz Animal Services provides a microchipping service for $15.00. This includes implanting the chip and registration with 24Petwatch for the life of the animal.

Attachments
Microchipping