microchipping (homeagain vs competition)

[AllBlackGSD]

So my vet uses the home again microchip and i have read several reviews/posts about their questionable methods and how they pretty much try to dupe customers into paying a $17 yearly fee for miscellaneous services that arent really necessary and that if you dont you get bombarded with spam emails reminding you to sign up for the safety of your pet.

does anyone have any suggestions with this? Or are there any other reputable companies that may be a better alternative? Thanks!

[AngelaA6]

I have a Home Again chip and we don't pay a yearly fee.

[battleborn]

Fritz has a Home Again microchip. The county animal control put it in and added it to his dog license for free.

You don't have to pay the yearly fee. The way the guy explained it to me, if you travel a lot it just ensures that your registration is listed nationwide. Haven't gotten any spam e-mails yet either.

If you're staying local, just make sure it's registered with the local animal control!

[Lucy Dog]

I have home again and you're right about them trying to get you to pay a yearly fee. It's not needed. It just provides extra services if your dog is lost.

For the basics, home again is fine and good for life without having to pay any yearly fees.

[Gwenhwyfair]

Just make sure the chip can be read by universal scanners.

Some companies encode the chips or use frequencies that cannot be read by universal scanners, which does NOT help if your dog ends up at a shelter with a different kind/brand of scanner.

[Rerun]

I have several digs chipped with home again. There is no annual fee and only rarely do I get an email about anything from them. Certainly no spamming. The chip works nationwide, the poster who was told the fee makes it work nationwide is not correct. The fee pays for things like lost pet posters and junk like that. You don't register a chip at your local animal control.

And the other poster is misinformed as well. Even if the reader can't actually READ your chip, it will pick up that the chip is there and the company to contact. So all is not lost.


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[Gwenhwyfair]

No you are incorrect.

My vets scanner was not able to detect Ilda's chip which was full duplex ISO compliant chip she got in Europe. Nothing, no reading, zilch.

I found a vet with a universal scanner, also known as a 'Black Scanner' and the chip was immediately and clearly read.

The chips have set frequencies as well as some were encoded (proprietary) thereby blocking scanners from different manufacturers.

We've had a LOT of threads on this topic.

Now, things HAVE gotten better and most chip companies are following the European lead of ISO compliant full duplex chips but that was NOT always the case.

I don't know about home again or their policies so that's why I posted a neutral statement to just check and make sure.

Originally Posted by Rerun

I have several digs chipped with home again. There is no annual fee and only rarely do I get an email about anything from them. Certainly no spamming. The chip works nationwide, the poster who was told the fee makes it work nationwide is not correct. The fee pays for things like lost pet posters and junk like that. You don't register a chip at your local animal control.

And the other poster is misinformed as well. Even if the reader can't actually READ your chip, it will pick up that the chip is there and the company to contact. So all is not lost.


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[Gwenhwyfair]

Another wrinkle in this is there are multiple chip registries online, multiple databases and there has been some effort to combine them. I think the AKC has something set up to try to warehouse the IDs from chips in one database.

I have registered Ilda's chip with a couple of registries, just in case.

Some charge a fee some don't.

At the end of the day chips are O.K. for extra precaution but I would just caution against believing they provide as MUCH security as some companies make them out.

[Gwenhwyfair]

This link illustrates some of the problems in the past with chips that could not be read.

In 1996, Schering-Plough Animal Health, marketer of the HomeAgain™ microchip identification system, announced distribution of a universal scanner by Destron-Fearing* that can read all microchips and removed a major obstacle to widespread acceptance of pet identification with the new technology. Until then, no one scanner could read the chips of all the US manufacturers, a situation that impeded efforts to involve shelters in a national effort to return stray dogs to their owners through a chip program. The new scanners were given to thousands of shelters throughout the country so that quick and easy identification of those dogs with microchips could be achieved.
There are some drawbacks. AVID® encoded its chips so that the number cannot be read, even by the HomeAgain™ universal scanner. Unless the shelter has an AVID® scanner, the best it can do is identify that a chip from AVID® is present. Thus it is still necessary to have access to at least two scanners in order to assure that the chip number can be retrieved.

Dog Owner's Guide: Microchips

[Rerun]

I said nationwide, I can not speak for Europe and their chips/readers.


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