> The 15-digit pet microchip is the international standard (see ISO 11784:1996 and ISO 11785:1996)
https://www.aaha.org/for-veterinary-professionals/microchip-...
Except the United States, because of course.
ISO is 134 kHz, US has both 125 and 128 kHz.
- Are you a furry?
- Do you tend to wander off and forget who you are?
- Who would think to scan a human for a chip?
- Is this a common thing to do and I just don't know it?
- Did you put the chip there or did someone else?
- Or was it some kind of freak accident?
And when they used it as a digital identifier to check for the Covid-vaccination status, of course all the wormbrained screamed that "Covid certificate mandate leads to Swedish government microchipping its citizens!'.
Crazy times we are living in! First all the conspiracy theories about a huge pedo-ring controlling the world's government come true and then this?!
Just makes you all look like cowardly cattle, which they also refer to us as.
But yeah, joke about it.
Just wait until you realize these pedos are just getting blackmailed into submission and aren't controlling anything but most here probably never will because of the wrong think programming.
I think most people use them as a backup work badge or controlling other RFID readers (car key, smart lock, etc). Or as a party trick
It's not particularly common but I've met other people.
Some people selfinject but it's probably more common to go to like a tattoo parlor or body mod shop
I went to a piercing shop to get it done by a guy who does silicone implants and other less common body modifications.
It's not common. The only other people I've met with chips are the guy who implanted it and my girlfriend at the time.
I have considered getting a newer model implanted and using that to badge in at work and home, but I'd likely have to travel halfway across the country to get it done.
A few years later and I was living in Tacoma. I found a guy in Seattle, John Durante, who does all kinds of body mods. So I got one of the Dangerous Things magnets implanted in my finger. I still had those magnets from the blogger, but John wasn't going to install mystery objects into a client haha and he already had some magnets on hand.
Maybe a year or 2 after that I had moved back to Fargo. Somehow I came across a guy, Ian Bell, out of St. Cloud, MN who also did some more extreme body boss. He implanted the NFC chip in my hand. Later on I had him implant a magnet in each ear, in the tragus. The idea with that was I could wear a coil necklace hooked up to an audio jack and I'd have implanted headphones. That didn't really work. The magnetic field is much to weak. It did work if I held the coil up to my ear, so that was a near trick, because the audio was audible from a few inches away. The magnets in my ears were stronger than the magnet in my finger, so I was able to hang paperclips off of them and that was a fun party trick. The ear magnets had to be removed after several months because the casing had cracked and the magnets were disintegrating, causing my ears to swell and hurt. I forgot what the magnets were coated in, but it was a different coating than the finger magnet; the finger magnet is still in there and fine today.
The magnet removal sucked and I was dumb about it. Only one bothered me at first so I left the other one in there. Well, the 2nd one started to bother me a bit later and by the time I was like ok I should get this taken out, the only person within 1400 miles who would do it was out of state. So I went to a walk in clinic and explained the situation and I'm pretty sure they thought I was crazy. They scheduled me for a surgery that was a couple of months out and I had a vacation to Australia coming up. I ordered some scalpels off Amazon and tried to DIY. I couldn't do it. I asked a friend, and she couldn't get it either. At this point my ear was swollen, discolored, and had some scalpel cuts. So I flew to Australia with a messed up ear. I tried to meet up with the owner of a piercing shop in Sydney who Ian had hooked me up with but he was in Perth while I was in Sydney. Suffered for the next month. Got back home. Ian cut it out.
I typed all this on a phone and I'm not going to proofread it. Sorry
thanks for the details it was a pretty interesting read.
if they bother scanning the bodies
> He's super docile and friendly. Always has been.
Are pit bulls known for being docile?
Years ago we fostered a lot of different dogs and the pit bulls were some of the nicest. But you have to pay attention to their strength. For example playing tug-o-war may end up in a shoulder injury because the pit bull will pull really hard.
Another problem is that a lot of idiots like pit bulls and make them aggressive.
The breed is great. They're just dogs; far less bitey statistically than many other breeds. The owners it attracts are the worst.
And the breed is super strong. When encouraged to be hyper-territorial and aggressive, the results are super-bad. A chihuahua bite should be followed with a doctor's visit; a pitty bite generally requires stitches.
---
Characteristics of 1616 Consecutive Dog Bite Injuries at a Single Institution
> Pit bull bites were implicated in half of all surgeries performed and over 2.5 times as likely to bite in multiple anatomic locations as compared to other breeds.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27400935/
---
Characteristics of Dog Bites in Arkansas
> family dogs represent a more significant threat than often is realized and that, among the breeds identified, pit bulls are proportionally linked with more severe bite injuries
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30075476/
---
Morbidity of pediatric dog bites: a case series at a level one pediatric trauma center
> Pediatric dog bites span a wide range of ages, frequently require operative intervention, and can cause severe morbidity. Dog familiarity did not confer safety, and in this series, Pit bulls were most frequently responsible.
Only afterward did I realized I almost destroyed my livelihood.
My partner Google stalked the owner and discovered that he’d been force to surrender another pit bull two years earlier.
https://www.youtube.com/live/rHVyMHTb6l4?si=ZPkPtNP8_zcb_MIf
What
By the way, good luck sticking your finger in a dog but when he is fighting... I think you didn't try it much before giving advices.
It's really really hard to watch.
I wouldn't have them around young kids because of that, if they accidentally hurt the dog like pulling on its ear wrong it isn't likely going to warn them, it will take it until the moment it decides it is too much and then possibly go for a full force bite on what seems like a reaction which can be deadly for a child. They also can be extremely protective, so if the dog perceives kids playing as a fight it might attack one of them thinking it is protecting another from harm.
Now don't get me wrong, it still isn't super common and I would have no problem owning one myself, provided there are no kids younger than teens. But it isn't a dog for someone to buy and then get annoyed at and ignore or not train well or get frustrated and hit them which can make them aggressive. People who take good care of their dogs will have a great dog, people who don't take good care of their dogs is risking a small chance of creating a time bomb.
There's some selection bias, obviously, but their reputation is definitely overblown.
I was at a friend's place with some others from school, we were about 14-15 years old, his family had this seemingly sweet pitbull, always wanting to be pet, super playful but kind. That day it attacked one of our classmates, out of the blue, we were sitting on the backyard, the dog playing with some rope toys, brought it to us sitting, this guy picked up the toy to throw it and before he could even started the motion this pitbull jumped on his face and started attacking.
It was so jarring, unexpected, and brutal that I got traumatised for life from pitbulls, I don't like to be close to them, don't like when I'm biking and there's one without a muzzle being walked around, and I don't want to pet one as much as it can look super friendly and calm. Seeing how fast it could turn into a murder machine even when growing up in a loving family that never trained it to be a guard/attack dog, and probably never treated the dog badly, made me very anti-pitbulls.
Most dog attacks in the country I grew up in are from pitbulls, including a few kids killed every year, the statistics don't lie. The breed requires people who aren't assholes so it doesn't become dangerous, I don't trust owners to do that, even more when it's a breed for "macho" guys to show off at the same time.
Since then if I see a strange dog and the option is there I keep plenty of distance between it and me no matter what I take to be it's state.
Most dog attacks aren't reported. Toy dog bites are often not reported.
Probably a case of ressource guarding.
Many dogs are dangerous not because they are trained to but because people don't train them at all beside to sit and to lay down.
Dogs are certainly not psychopathe that attack out of the blue, they have motivations and reasonings. Most often a lack of education and socializing.
When I see people puting their dog in a cage at night and then puting them on a leash to walk it a few times per week, yeah, that's ticking bombs.
The only time my dog was ever randomly attacked was a pitbull and you quickly learn talking to other dog owners how common this is. Nothing clears out a dog park like a pit bull showing up.
1. https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/five-things-to-know-abou...
2. https://ottawa.ca/en/living-ottawa/animals-and-pets/dogs/dog...
Ontario also tried to remove the pitbull ban, after the usual "it's owners the owners" protests, but a bunch of attacks happened again so they reinstated it.
Speak about natural instincts... I answer that some people have zero clue what to do with a dog.
I say we put down all these golden retriever too !
For example:
https://blog.dogsbite.org/2016/10/table-retrospective-level-...
https://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-statistics-studies-level-1...
"pit bull" refers to a dog breed that was optimized for its performance (=more aggressive and dangerous) in the "pit".
Not all pit bulls are dangerous, in the right hands they are some of the nicest dogs I have seen, but yeah.
Personally I don't judge dogs anymore by their races but by their owner, I found it to be much more accurate.
And on a sidenote, this owner really doesn't inspire me much. When she say it was disheartening to loose this dog because she paid for it with her own money... That's the kind of things I hear from the low life with pits.
Lmao.
Aggressivity isn’t instinctive, it’s learnt through experience or rather lack of.
Lmao xd lol wtf.
"Lmao."
100 percent this dog is named after a bullet.
Because thats how Philly rolls.
In case you dont know:
HitchBOT got murdered in Philly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HitchBOT
Bill Burr's Philly set: https://www.reddit.com/r/cowboys/comments/1il5msw/in_honor_o...
Don't get me wrong Philly is great, but Philly is... something.
There is a self-selecting bias with pit bulls. People who buy and raise pit bulls often want a “mean” “tough” dog, so that’s what they get. You get a loving sweet pit bull if you raise them in a loving sweet way. Dogs are like children; they are very observant and pick up on even the tiniest of cues.
Although, like people, some dogs (of all different breeds) are born more aggressive. That can usually be corrected with training. It’s mostly nurture, and part nature.
Not really. Even "old school" working catch dogs in this breed may require a break stick to get the dog to release game. In addition, the dogs are strong.
And that's really the crux of the problem.
Dogs will be dogs. They can be the nicest animal on the planet, but at some point a dog will bite you--maybe you did something stupid, maybe the dog accidentally got underfoot and got kicked, maybe the dog is just sick, maybe something agitated the dog, whatever. A bite will happen. The problem with pit bulls is that when they bite the damage is much more problematic than with other breeds.
And this is the real issue. Because of their strength, pit bulls (and a small number of other breeds) account for a disproportionate amount of deaths and hospitalizations relative to other breeds.
It also doesn't help that these types of dogs are disproportionately owned by jackasses.
All dogs can be dangerous, even small ones can bite a finger out of your hand.
Either kill all the dogs or get people who own them to be responsible.
Because getting people to be responsible has worked as a solution for anything ...
<checks notes>
Ah. Exactly ... Never.
This is a breed that should be allowed to die out. They were bred specifically for fighting, and there is no good reason for them to exist. There are plenty of other dog breeds with equivalent characteristics that aren't such a danger to people.
I miss that dumb cat.
Once the dog has demonstrated itself to be dangerous, there is not much you can do other than euthanasia. The worst thing you can do is bring it to a shelter and let an unsuspecting family take the dangerous dog in. A lot of trouble would be saved by choosing a similar looking dog breed that isn't as aggressive or dangerous.
The main problem with pit bulls, AIUI, is that they can be aggressive towards other dogs. Also, assholes buy them (due to their reputation) and then encourage aggressive behavior.
I've met some pit bulls owned by nice people and the dogs were super friendly and especially very tolerant of children.
Pit bulls have a long history as family dogs -- they're loyal, affectionate, and incredibly gentle with kids. The whole 'nanny dog' reputation exists for a reason.
An example... https://www.luccishouse.org/post/misunderstood-angels-the-hi...
My pit mix was actually a therapy dog for autistic children through a program at a local hospital in Austin. The kids would read to her while she cuddled up next to them, putting her paw on them gently when they were nervous or frustrated. The program was designed to help the kids build confidence by providing a social interaction where they wouldn't feel judged. And she was great at it. It was the highlight of her week getting to go to the therapy center.
I've had a lot of dogs in my life, and I've never had one more sweet or gentle than she was.
But look, any dog can be awful or wonderful. That comes down to the owner, the environment, and the individual animal way more than the breed -- and honestly, the whole concept of 'breeds' is a bit silly to begin with. But I get that people need to classify things. It's just dumb.
So, stop being a dog racist. (=
There is no historical basis for the contents of what was basically a chain letter.
I highly highly encourage all you pet lovers to obtain one for your little homie.
You never know when you’ll need it.
In Belgium there is a centralized database in which the data is maintained.
When I moved to the USA I thought it was very weird that it wasn't done automatically, and that there are many databases out there.
In fact, one went bust a while ago: https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/microchip-company-cl...
Now what? Gotta pay to have 18 digits and an address inserted in a database?
I thought it was very weird in the USA
The shelter in my city chips every animal before anyone can adopt them. It's honestly bonkers to me why anyone who has a pet wouldn't chip them. It's cheap (especially when considering the cost of a regular vet visit), and can save you from lots of heartbreak later on.
It seems the various chip companies share registry data, doesn't have to be state run.
So I adopted her, got her chipped per the law, and she grew into a fine cat who loved her place with me - she was great.
One time she got out, and I got the call. But it wasn't to get her back, it was to come get her corpse from under the car that had flattened her some distance from our home.
In many ways, I wish I'd not gotten the chip, that was a really traumatic event which I'd probably have avoided, at least not knowing what had happened.
https://scaife.perseus.org/reader/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0012.t...
Sadly cat snatching is a real thing that's happened to me possibly twice. The first time was confirmed beyond a doubt; I had to bust out my cat from her back porch at 2am or so when I was roaming the neighborhood looking for him. The only reason I was even in the vicinity was that it was the last spot the GPS tracker reported before he went missing.
"Keep your pets indoors, then!" Yeah, yeah. The risks come with the territory. But my boy Pepper is still with me after a couple years, and I'm hoping a tag with "I have a happy home" followed by my number will keep would-be "do-gooders" away. (A lot of these crazy folks that snatch pets think they're doing the pet a favor by taking them.)
Miss you Salt.
Anyway, the point is, if vets were legally required to actually check the chips when they're brought in for appiontments, they'd quickly notice the discrepancy. They're the only entity in the world in a position to do something about it. But what vet is gonna try to take "your" pet away from you when you take them in just because of mismatched chips? Nobody, because pets are property, and that would be theft according to the law.
To be clear here, the “territory” here is letting your pet free roam off of your property and expecting everybody else to be cool with that?
I have a cat and it stays indoors exclusively.
Using "think of the birds" as a justification for imprisoning your cat for their entire lives is also pretty crummy. It's called wildlife because they exist in the wilderness. Even if cats kill a large number of birds, so what? Those birds don't have a happy, loving home with emotional bonds to an actual human.
If you think this logic is flawed, explain why you're fine with flies dying but not birds. I bet you've swatted a few in your time.
Cats are probably a leading cause of mortality in birds. [2] Domestic cats are not native to North America. The birds here would not have evolved to avoid them (and beyond that, domestic cat numbers are not limited by prey availability because they're pets bred and fed by humans).
You'll find plenty of studies with evidence that domestic cats are probably bad for bird populations. [3][4]
But to be fair, buildings/glass windows kill a lot of birds too. [5]
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380
[2] https://www.fws.gov/library/collections/threats-birds#:~:tex...
[3] https://www.mdpi.com/1424-2818/13/7/322
[4] https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wsb.737
[5] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
Suppose it's true that cats are bad for bird populations. The implication is that just because birds are dying, it's okay to snatch a cat. More than that, that cats should be imprisoned for their entire lives, when they naturally want to roam.
Someone can take one side of this ethical debate or the other, and both sides probably won't agree. I personally find it sad that people would place the well-being of birds above that of a wonderful, furry companion that clearly belongs to someone.
The logic also doesn't quite line up: I was hoping someone would try to justify why it's okay to kill flies but not birds, since that's the real counterargument to this one. Especially when they kill flies with their own hands.
So much of life boils down to "we're the apex species and we do what we want." But such is life. I find it difficult not to call out the absurdities when they appear, though.
To the topic at hand, how exactly is this quantified? I suspect that word "contributed" is doing a lot of work here. [2] seems to admit as much:
> True estimates of mortality are difficult to determine. However, recent studies have synthesized the best available data to estimated ranges of mortality to bird populations in North America from some of the most common, human-caused sources of bird mortality.
The numbers in [2] are admittedly pretty startling. But it looks like they come from one report labeled "2013a". Any info on where to find it, or what it even is? Otherwise it's easy to call [2] a citation when in fact no evidence whatsoever is being presente.
[4] is much better. https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wsb.737 But cats are still only a contributory factor, not the main cause; the report says they're the second leading cause of admissions, not the first. So, high, and worth thinking about.
But again, the cost here is "removing, by force, someone's beloved pet." I'm not above saying that we should probably care about cats more than birds, because of the emotional bonds they form with humans. After all, that's why we're fine with flies being killed, right? No emotional bonds.
I don't think anyone's implying that? It just seems foolish to let your cat roam about. Not only are they at risk of getting stolen, but the risks of getting injured/killed or sick (or poisoned) are so much higher than if you keep them at home.
Whenever I hear about someone who's distraught about an outdoor cat of theirs that died while outside, I feel super bad for the cat, and not quite so much for the owner. That death could have been prevented, trivially.
And, sure, you can look up some other studies [6] that will make you question the accuracy of the numbers but, even if you decrease the estimate by 70%, cats are still killing a lot of birds. Instead of #1 on the [2] list maybe they're #2 (behind buildings).
It's very easy to give a cursory search and see overall North American bird populations are decreasing. Heck, even flying insect biomass is significantly down.
We don't care about people killing flies in their house. We do care about flies dying on a mass scale. Flies are important pollinators! Ecosystems need them.
A few cats killing a few birds is no big deal. Millions of cats killing hundreds of millions of birds, in an ecosystem that shouldn't have cats, is a big deal.
If we armed every American human with flyswatters and sent them outside every day with orders to kill every flying insect they saw then it would probably be very bad (though I think this imagery is also hilarious).
I don't really want to get into my full opinion on the ethics and morality of pet ownership. Stealing other people's pets is wrong. I think if one lives in North America and feels their cat needs outdoor time then it should be supervised on their own property or train it and walk it with a harness and leash. Catios are neat too.
the implication is that if you want a cat, you should be responsible and keep it indoors.
>But again, the cost here is "removing, by force, someone's beloved pet."
no, the cost is keeping your cat indoors.
you are "debating" against a fictional argument. no one is saying that it is okay to steal or "remove by force" someones pet.
they presented you with several citations about how damaging house cats are (and there are several more, you can start at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife) and you said... "nu uh".
>I'm looking after for my cat's wellbeing, not some bird's
wildly selfish statement.
Also, this entire discussion is off-topic. The point was for vets to verify microchips, something directly related to the article.
i feel bad for your neighbors.
What a selfish way to look at things. So you think it's fine to bring invasive species into a new environment and let them damage the local ecosystem? Cool cool cool.
If you were truly looking after your cat's well-being, you'd keep them inside in the first place. Their attachment to roaming about is not as strong or essential as you seem to think it is.
It's my legal right to let my animal roam. You can have a problem with it as much as you'd like. Just don't put your hands on my cat, and we're fine.
As far as I can tell, we seem to be living in an age where the entire world is a bit crazy on a certain topic. Slavery used to be legal, and normal. This to me is no different. You justify keeping them indoors for their entire lives on the basis that birds might die. That's asinine, especially from hypocrites that are happy to kill flies when it suits them. Cats don't harm you, and they don't harm your animals.
I have pets. They are allowed into my yard. They don’t leave my yard. If your cat enters my yard because you don’t want to crimp their free spirited wanderlust, it’s going to end up in an altercation with my pets.
people pointing out how damaging your cat is and saying you should keep it inside is the same as fucking slavery?
fuck me, that is one the most out-to-lunch things i have heard someone say in a long time. slavery! jesus christ.
go up to someone who has a family that suffered as slaves. tell them that keeping a cat indoors is the same as what their family suffered. please. i will watch it when it shows up in a worldstar video.
>Cats don't harm you, and they don't harm your animals.
there are probably ~50 citations in this thread about how they do, about how they have caused the extinction of multiple species, etc. but yeah, whatever.
From the linked paper:
Pet cats, despite their valued role as companion animals, are a major threat to wildlife. Collectively, roaming pet cats kill 546 million animals per year in Australia. As such the management of cats has major implications for Australia’s wildlife and ecosystems. [...]
Many owners believe their cats don’t hunt because they never come across evidence of killed animals. However, studies of pet cats using video-tracking collars or scat analysis have established that the vast majority (85%) of the animals killed by pet cats are not brought home.
On average, each roaming, hunting pet cat kills more than three animals every week. The numbers add up. On average, over a year each roaming and hunting pet cat in Australia kills 186 animals. This number includes 110 native animals (40 reptiles, 38 birds and 32 mammals). [...]
[For example] In Mandurah, Western Australia, the disturbance and hunting of just one pet cat and one stray cat caused the total breeding failure of a colony of more than 100 pairs of fairy terns. [...]
The findings presented here are summarised from an analysis of the results of many dozens of studies that was undertaken by the Threatened Species Recovery Hub. The research team included scientists from The University of Queensland, The Australian National University, Charles Darwin University, The University of Sydney and Murdoch University. The research received funding from the Australian Government through the National Environmental Science Program and was published in Wildlife Research.
It's always so frustrating when you've been doing something for 15 years, speak from experience, and then someone comes along and says "Well, that's bad!" Sure. Meanwhile, my cat comes home happy and healthy each night, unless "everybody else" decides to steal him in the guise of doing him a favor.
Verified microchips during vet appointments would cancel out this exploit.
It is absolutely fine for a cat to be outside. They come back. Their biggest threat is, again, people who think they're doing the cat a favor when they steal them.
Cheers to you for making my night. I don't care if everybody else in the thread is anti-cat. I'm just happy you spoke up. Thanks, and have a good week.
And finally you found a second wrong way driver.
The brutal reality is that pounds are overflowing with lost animals. Statistics are on your side that if you snatch any given cat that you see, you'll likely be doing it a favor. But cats with collars are a different story. If people see that they're owned, they should keep their hands off. Unfortunately that doesn't stop some fanatics.
I say it would make some people think before stealing an animal.
Others, dumber, would get caught.
But almost no one is going to get a knife to get this chip our of the animal because you'll get bitten and you have no idea where to look.
Let me put it this way: Your life is forever ruined if you "lose" a child. I would never stop looking.
Arguably it is MUCH worse to not know what happened (no closure).
They don't. The range of a typical chip reader is a few inches - reading one requires handling the dog (and can be tricky if the chip's migrated from its expected position). It's not something that can be done covertly, or from a distance.
Some owners do use GPS trackers or AirTag like devices.
- The owner originally had two dogs. Both disappeared from her backyard one day. One dog returned home. The other vanished without a trace.
- Eleven years later, a random girl found the missing dog outside. She befriended the dog and brought him home. She talked with her parents and contacted ACCT Philly, who in turn found the original owner through a microchip.
Does this make sense? To me, this story managed to be a rare mix of heartwarming, insightful and frustrating.
Is it common in US to feed dogs with hotdogs?
Databases work!
... I don't if it's an American thing but it's not something I'd say. The dog is an animal, it feels like it's compared to a car that she paid with HER OWN MONEY and then was stolen..
Tell me you loved him, it was the one you loved the most, stuffs like that but 'i paid for it with my own money'... She might as well has bought an iphone.
Still, let’s give it a try.
I’m human, I do love my dog. I don’t consider it to be a table that has a 100€ price tag attached to it.
If someone stole my table, I’d be pretty pissed of because he stole me money.
If someone steal my dog, I’m pretty pissed off because I do LOVE it.
when I find my dog back, I’d be happy, not because I found back my 100€ worth of dog but because it’s a living being that I missed emotionally.
Hopefully you get the difference. I know some people who consider their animals like raw meat, 2€ a day worth of food + chained 24/24 to a tree = home guardian. I personally find that lunatic in 2026.
Think it’s a cultural thing. When I see how globally Americans treat their dog, and you’re right to point out it’s a property according to law, because that’s how they treat them. It’s like the dog is a table or a chair, and if you’re not happy with it you abandon it like you would throw away a broken chair.
Ubiquitous microchips are really quite amazing.