Doggone Heartwarming

And get that filthy bird an Avian Flu Shot as well...

Here's a sweet story about how a microchip helped reunite a family with their beloved pet.

...two years after a hurricane blew down a back-yard fence in Florida and set free a golden retriever named Sam-I-Am, the wayward pooch was found in McHenry County.

Veterinarians in McHenry County were stunned as well when they discovered a microchip in the scruff of the dog's neck that placed his home more than 1,200
miles to the southeast.

This is great as a voluntary way to track your pet, however, recent efforts to force all pet owners to chip their pets are too Big Brother for my taste. And rabies vacinations for cats is plain ludicrous. NWH, Sept. 10th:

"The biggest reason is that McHenry County is the only county in northeastern Illinois that doesn't have cat registration," County Board Chairman Ken Koehler, R-Crystal Lake said. "Because of diseases and the large number of rabies cases in wild animals, it only makes common sense."

"Cat registration is a huge component of rabies prevention," McNulty said. "We definitely have seen rabies in McHenry County in wild animals, especially bats, so the potential for cats to get rabies, either indoor or outdoor, is out there. Any animal they could come in contact if they are outside, or even inside, could carry rabies."

WRONG!! Just another example of government intrusion, fostering public hysteria over a non-existant threat in the hopes of generating tax revenue from fear. As the California Animal Care Coalition notes:

Unfortunately, although a microchip can be a helpful backup form of identification for an animal, it should not be considered a 'fail-safe'. Many of our member agencies have reported problems with the microchips themselves ('floating' from the injection area, the lack of availability of a truly universal scanner that will identify the microchips of any manufacturer, and also with the registries that microchip manufacturers are supposed to maintain)."

"The author and supporters do not present any statistical evidence that this legislation will reduce the number of animals euthanized in the state's animal shelters."

"It will be impractical to charge fees high enough to recover local agency costs."
"The establishment of a local registry is beyond the capabilities of many small agencies and the national registries do not have a history of being adequately maintain or accessible." (They are referring to the various national microchip recovery services/registries.)

"Developing and implementing this registration program will add additional workload to animal control agencies that have limited resources and are already challenged with meeting their existing responsibilities." (They are referring to an animal control microchip registry or possibly the annual registration required of breeders and pet dealers.)

As the Opinon column of the Northwest Herald notes,

It is hard to justify registering cats, other than to create a new revenue stream for government. And microchips should be voluntary. Government should butt out.

It's just another way to create revenue and issue tickets to those hordes of 'non-compliants'. You know, the little old lady living in poverty who can't afford one for her housecat.