TYLER, Texas — If you have any pets and will be traveling this holiday, consider getting them microchipped. Tyler animal control is offering a service that connects lost pets with their owners for free through the rest of 2021.
Chandler resident Cathy Butler lost her cat, Stanley, in early 2020. After a few months, she lost hope that she'd ever find him until she got a call from animal control.
Butler said, “It was a random number. I almost didn't answer it. When I picked up the phone, they said, ‘Do you have a cat Stanley?’ I said, ‘Well, I used to.’”
He'd been missing more than a year.
Butler continued, “They said he they had a cat that was chipped to me. And I said 'send me a picture.' And sure enough, it was Stanley.”
Tyler Animal Control reunited her and Stanley with a microchip.
Shawn Markman, animal services director for the city of Tyler, said the process is quick and easy.
He explained, "It's just an identifier — a little RFID chip about the size of a grain of rice. It goes underneath the skin in the scruff of the neck. They never really know it's there... Dogs and cats can't tell us where they live. So we kind of equated this as a social security number for your dog.”
The chip doesn’t track your pet’s exact location, it just keeps the owner's information logged in case they find a pet.
Markman encourages microchipping for many reasons: to reunite pets with their owners, to keep pets out of shelters and they also scan every animal that they find deceased.
"It gives people closure, sometimes, if we can least give them a call and say, 'Hey, we did find your dog,'” he explained.
Take it from Butcher, microchipping your pet is an investment pet owners won't regret.
She said, “Holding Stanley was a wonderful feeling. It was like getting your child back."
If you’d like to get your furry friend microchipped, bring them over to Tyler Animal Control. It's 100% free and you do not need to live in Tyler to take advantage.