This has happened before. I think given the legalisms around pets, ownership, responsibility, all of the chip registry companies should have been required to put the data into escrow, with a recovery plan and a handler of last resort in the form of a CSV file or something.
Is it safe to get multiple chips? They’re about the size of a grain of rice, so it shouldn’t be too unwieldy to get chipped from a couple of different vendors at the same time. With a chip, GPS collar, maybe an AirTag, that’s about all you can do besides lots of training.
The microchip stores nothing but a serial number. I don’t quite understand the design that you would need a vendor to maintain a database between the serial and owner information, why not just store owner phone number like a traditional dog tag?
The title is misleading: the chip isn't useless, it is basically NFC and can be read just fine. The number on it can be looked up in a registry to notify the owner of a lost pet. I believe there is nothing preventing you from registering the same number with multiple registries. Hope that helps.
In the US, there are something like 40+ pet chip registration companies. The problem of fragmentation is that the portable NFC chip ID number needs to be associated with each of them. This is dubious in the age of private equity and a total market failure. This is something that should be run as a single nonprofit to avoid this useless and unnecessary confusion.
it's not useless. it just produces a number that is stored on a database. you can register it with another database if needed, although it would have been good if someone could transfer the records from the ailing company.
NFC chips can store a fair amount of data (think QR code). Why bother with the database? Why is the standard not just saving one's email and phone number to the chip?
9 comments
[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 28.1 ms ] thread