Schertz scraps pet licenses, tags for microchips
Pet owners in Schertz will no longer be required to purchase licenses and tags for their cats and dogs. Instead, the city is shifting to a pet microchip system that will aid in returning lost pets to their owners.
“Licensing and tags are an old technology,” said Ginger Dispain, Schertz Animal Adoption Center manager. “We find tags scraped up, unreadable; they can get lost, and often, the contact number doesn’t help us when we need to find an owner.”
The American Humane Society estimates more than 10 million dogs or cats are reported lost each year. A large percentage of those lost pets are never returned to their owner. There could be a number of reasons for the failure to reunite, but high among them is the inability to identify and contact the owner.
Microchips are tiny computer chips, about the size of a grain of rice, implanted under a pet’s skin by a veterinarian using a needle. Anesthesia is not used, and the procedure is similar to a simple vaccination.
Each microchip carries a registration number that is associated with the owner’s name and contact information, which is added to a pet registry service offered by the chip manufacturer.
“It just makes it easier for us to locate the owner and get the dogs and cats back home,” Dispain said. Registry information on the chips can be read using a handheld reader.
May is “Chip Your Pet Month” and while the Schertz Animal Adoption Center is closed because of COVID-19 restrictions, Dispain’s crew is making rounds and answering calls within the city and taking care of its animal population.
The push to get the city to move to a chip reporting method was well received by the Schertz City Council when first presented to them last month.
“Overall, there was a pretty positive response. There were questions about it, about how we would handle aspects of it,” she said. “But council was pretty supportive of moving to the chip.”
City Council on April 14 voted 6-1 to abolish pet licensing in Schertz.
Another problem with the licensing and tags is that pet owners weren’t active in renewing, or even receiving, the city tags.
“We weren’t having any success having people coming in and getting them,” she said. “So many people didn’t know it was supposed to be done, or how often it was supposed to be done. Many people thought once they got their pet its shots, that was enough.”
As the shelter must care for the city’s lost, stray and feral animals, emptying its kennel space of the pet population helps Dispain and the staff focus on animal control.
“The shorter time we have them in the shelter, the better it is for everybody. It’s easier to check them out with the registry,” she added. “Our biggest goal is to make sure that if they come in here, we can get them back to their owners.”
The licensing and tagging went hand-in-hand with county rabies vaccine requirements. In some counties, pets are required to receive a bevy of shots — rabies, distemper and bordetella — every three years. Guadalupe County, however, requires an annual rabies vaccine.
The chip process costs $15 per animal, and it remains under the skin and readable by nearly all chip scanners on the market.
“Sometimes they migrate, but they remain under the skins. The chipped information will be reported and tracked via any of the registry systems. The owner will then be notified that we have their pet,” she said.
“We’ve had quite a few during this time that have come in with microchips,” she said. “Almost every pet that comes in with a microchip has found its way home to its owner, so it’s been pretty successful thus far.”
While the shelter has conducted adoption drives prior to the COVID-19 shutdown, she expects to offer more chip drives once the shelter reopens.
“We’ve posted about the chipping on Facebook, on the city website, and we’re working with the area vets to let their clients know,” she said. “And once we open back up with the ‘new normal,’ we’ll have the chip drives.”
Residents can address questions to the adoption center, 800 Community Circle Drive, at 210-619-1550.
