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Microchipping Your Pets
Thousands of pets become lost each year. Tragically, some are not reunited with their owners. Many lost pets end up in shelters where they are adopted out to new homes or even euthanized. It is important that your pet has identification at all times. Collars and tags are essential, but they can fall off or become damaged. Technology has made it possible to equip your pet with a microchip for permanent identification.
How it Works
A microchip is about the size of a grain of rice. It consists of a tiny computer chip housed in a type of glass made to be compatible with living tissue. The microchip is implanted between the pet's shoulder blades under the skin with a needle and special syringe. The process is similar to getting an injection. Little to no pain is experienced - most pets do not seem to even feel it being implanted. Once in place, the microchip can be detected immediately with a handheld device that uses radio waves to read the chip. This device scans the microchip, and then displays a unique alphanumeric code. Once the microchip is placed, the pet must be registered with the microchip company, usually for a one-time fee. Then, the pet can be traced back to the owner if found.
Things You Should Know
Microchips are designed to last for the life of a pet. They do not need to be charged or replaced.
Some microchips have been known to migrate from the area between the shoulder blades, hence the need to scan the pet’s entire body.
A microchipped pet can be easily identified if found by a shelter or veterinary clinic.
No method of identification is perfect. The best thing you can do to protect your pet is to be a responsible owner. Keep current identification tags on your pet at all times, consider microchipping as reinforcement. If your pet does become lost, more identification can increase the odds of finding your beloved companion.
By Jenna Stregowski, RVT, About.com Guide
PS Queensland Legislation now requires all cats and dogs born after June 30, 2009 to be microchipped before 6 months of age. There is also a requirement that any cat or dog which changes ownership: sale/purchase, giveaway or lost and found, must be microchipped.
Grange Veterinary Surgery is an AVA Accredited Microchip Centre so please feel free to contact us to discuss any aspect of microchipping.
Frightful Noises
To a dog, loud noises can be a nightmare of fear. Many dogs are tragically scared by thunderstorms. Similar fears develop to other noises such as fireworks, cap guns, whips and gunshots, nailing guns and many other forms of loud noises.
When scared by noises, dogs will do all they can to either get comfort, or to escape the noise. They will seek to come inside the house and your comfort may be all they need, but what if the dog is left alone when a storm or similar noise strikes? Such dogs are at grave risk.
Even if your dog does not attempt to escape, you may find its fear of storms very difficult to control. Thankfully, there are solutions.
Progressive desensitisation
The 'Happy Mat' routine
Ensure your dog is safe
The 'Pace and Praise' technique
Medication for noise fears
Progressive desensitisation
The best answer to a dog’s phobia of noises and storms is a process of progressive desensitisation. Here, a dog’s fear of noises is reduced and replaced with tranquil, accepting, even joyful, behaviour. It is not an easy process though, and sometimes it won’t work, but it is certainly worth a good try.
For this, you need a ‘controllable’ noise, where the volume of the noise can be reduced or increased as needed. For storms, recorded sound effects of real storms are sometimes effective. For fears of explosions, devious accessories such as cap guns and exploding balloons can be used. The difficulty is that there is a limit to how closely a recorded storm mimics the real thing, because a storm is more than just noise.
Storm recordings are available on a variety of sound effects CDs. Choose one with good thunder claps, lightning roars, rain squalls, explosions and similar noises. Some are available commercially through your veterinary surgeon, such as the 'Frightful Noises' CD.
Play the recording back at full volume to ensure it induces the same degree of fear as a real storm. If this is not so, then another solution needs to be found. The better your sound equipment the more likely you are to have the desired effect. A good sub-woofer speaker is essential.
If the recording causes as much trembling and anxiety as the real thing, then you can proceed.
The 'Happy Mat' routine
The first step has nothing to do with the recording. All you need to do is to establish a new routine for your dog in which you train it to be happy and content about being on a mat, in front of your stereo.
Put your dog on the mat. Command it to do a simple task such as to ‘SIT’ or to lie ‘DOWN’. If your dog responds, feed it a tasty food reward and praise it. Really overemphasise the praise to ensure your dog is happy. Rub its chest and give it pats. Make its tail wag enthusiastically. This is called the 'Jolly Routine'.
Repeat this SIT/DOWN/PRAISE routine many times each day for five days. After this time, your dog will look forward to its special time on the mat, in front of your stereo.
Now introduce the recorded storm, but at a very low volume. Continue the Jolly Routine by giving your dog chest rubs and back scratches with the storm at this low volume. If your dog accepts this level of noise, then gradually increase the volume over successive days. Eventually the dog will tolerate a full volume, canned storm.
Ensure your dog is safe
Another vitally important matter is to ensure your dog’s safety during a storm. Don’t treat a dog’s fear of storms lightly. If you are leaving your dog and a storm is likely, you are better confining your dog to a secure room from which it cannot escape. The process used to do this is called the 'Denning Principle' .
The 'Pace and Praise' technique
What can you do when your dog is scared in the middle of a storm? The most important matter is to ensure that you are not compounding its fear. Don’t try to comfort the dog by patting it or cuddling it. This only serves to teach the dog that fear is the behaviour you expect in a storm.
The behaviour you want is rationale, sensible, calm behaviour. Achieve this by moving the dog from the emotional ‘right side’ of its brain to the logical ‘left side’.
This is done with the ‘Pace and Praise’ technique.
Place your dog on a lead and start to pace or move about quickly. Encourage your dog to ‘HEEL’ with you. Give it some firm commands such as ‘SIT’ or ‘DOWN’ and ‘tick’ your dog’s correct response with immediate praise. Keep working with the dog until you can see that it is starting to respond and that it is focussing more on you than on the storm. As it comes back into order, start leaving more space between the command and the ‘tick’ of praise that follows. It is unlikely that your paranoid pooch will be totally calm, but at least this technique should make it controllable.
Recommence the Pace and Praise technique if your dog again goes ‘furry around the edges’.
Medication for noise fears
With noise fears, the sensible use of anti-anxiety medication is often a good idea, and is often essential to stop a dog injuring itself.
For further information, contact us. Remember that noise fears are serious - keep your dog safe during a storm or fireworks evening at all costs.
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Dr Cam Day BVSc BSc MACVSc is a veterinary surgeon, an animal behaviour consultant and media presenter. In 1995 he qualified as a Member of the Australian College of Veterinary Scientists in the discipline of Animal Behaviour and is one of only 15 veterinarians with this qualification in Australia. He works full time in animal behaviour management in Queensland.
Image kindly supplied by Bayer Australia Ltd.
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