Preparing Your Home : Dog Guide : Animal Planet

Dog Tags

Collared

Tags and other types of identifiers increase the chances your dog will make it home if he becomes lost.

Home Preparation Pages

Whether you choose plastic or engraved metal, a wide range of ID tags is available to go on the collar, along with the rabies vaccination tag and dog license. Although it may seem natural to include your dog’s name on the ID tag, this may make it easier for thieves to coax him away.

Dog Tag Essential Information

Name and address
One or two reliable telephone numbers with answering machines
A line that reads: "Reward for return"

When you're traveling with your dog, buy replaceable key tags and list your name and a number where you can be reached at each leg of your tour.

If you're considering a more permanent means of identifying your dog (since collars can come off or be removed by thieves), you can choose tattoos or microchips. Relatively painless, a tattoo can be done by your vet while your dog is under anesthesia. Or, your vet can implant a microchip into your dog's skin by injecting it between his shoulder blades.

Many shelters, vets and even medical labs will check for tattoos and run a scanner over unidentified dogs to check for a microchip, then contact the national registry where your dog's number is on file. Since microchips have been introduced, shelters have been able to return a significantly higher number of dogs to their owners than they'd been able to through collars alone. Of course, sometimes the tattoo can't be easily read, the scanner—if there is one at all—may not be compatible with the microchip, or your dog may be found by a person unfamiliar with these systems, who simply wants to phone the owner. Err on the side of caution: Always keep a collar on your dog if he's outside or if there's a chance he might slip out of the house.

Recent photos of your dog will further ensure that you can always identify him. Include some shots that clearly show his face, some that show his entire body, and some that focus on his identifying features. You may think you'd always be able to recognize him, but a scared or disturbed dog can take on a whole different look and fool both you and any animal shelter worker to whom you're describing him.

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Dog Guide