Identifying Your Cats

It doesn't take much for a cat (or dog) to slip out of an open door, window, or fence.

Even if you have your cats in a fenced enclosure, they can climb, they can dig, and strangers can come by and just open the gate -- see the true stories in the article "What To Do If Your Pet Is Lost Or Missing".

The stray cats we feed have dug places under our fence that they can slip through to come in and eat in safety. OK, we helped a bit by removing rocks near the gate bottoms.

One of our four indoor-only cats, Panther is also known as "Houdini Cat" because he has demonstrated expertise at getting out of our home. He can lift out screens from windows with his claws. He has appeared out of nowhere and streaked out of a sliding door that was open only briefly. In honor of these accomplishments, Panther now has a microchip implanted between his shoulders.

We have trained both Panther and Glory to wear harnesses and walk on a retractable leash (or they trained us to follow them, we're not entirely sure :-). This helps them get the "outside time" they want in a safe manner, and forces us to have some exercise too.

Collar and tags: Any vet or large pet supply store offers individualized imprinted ID tags for sale. Both metal and plastic are offered at stores; we prefer metal as it will not crack or become damaged as easily as plastic. You must imprint a way of contacting your family, should your pet be lost. The downside is that collars can tear off and with them the ID tags.

There are a number of options as to what you can have imprinted:

• Your pet's name
• Vet's office phone number and a unique identifying number for your family that is in their records
• Your cellular or home phone number
• If your county keeps registration numbers on pets (ususally only done for dogs), this unique number and the county agency phone number can be on the tag.

Microchip: About the size of a large grain of rice, this is injected by your vet between the shoulder blades. It has a unique number that is read by a low level radio frequency scanner (the chip only emits energy when it is being scanned, so it is considered perfectly safe for your cat's health). The chip manufacturer (or another pet search entity chosen by the manufacturer) has a list of all microchips sold and which veterinarians (or breeders) bought them. It can be read by a hand-held scanner which animal shelters and many vets own. Once read, the unique number is traced to the vet or breeder, they are called, and the vet or breeder in turn calls you as her records show that microchip is in your cat. Microchips have quickly become the best way of positively identifying your cats, no matter how far they happen to roam; there are many happy stories out there.

Tattoo on inside of hind leg: An older method, in which your vet tattoos a family member's social security number or AKC (American Kennel Club) number (for dogs). This is mostly useful for "proof of ownership", rather than locating you as the owner, unless your cat happens to be registered with AKC.