By Josette Keelor -- Daily Staff Writer

Losing a pet and not knowing if the animal is hurt, hungry or scared is a pet owner's nightmare, and not a far-fetched one at that.

Anyone who has papered the neighborhood with fliers displaying the image of a fluffy cat named Puma, or a German shepherd who answers to the name Grace, will know that whatever identification a pet wears can act as a free ticket home.

In the computer age, though, pet owners have many more options than a "lost dog" poster. A recent form of identification is pet microchips, which work like a digital license, so that even if a dog or cat loses its collar, an animal shelter employee can still identify the pet by scanning for a microchip containing all of its information.

Will Wood, executive director of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Winchester, says that microchips are an effective way of discovering the owners of a lost pet. He says that the SPCA scans every animal found, but most are not carrying microchips. A microchip will be inserted there if the person adopting the animal requests it.

"We're equipped to detect for them and scan for them," he says.

"By law any animal that comes through the door — we are required to scan [for a microchip]" says Warren County Humane Society shelter director Jeanette Farrell.

The Warren County shelter inserts microchips into all animals adopted from the facility, Farrell says. The registration of the animal is then the responsibility of the owner. Even if the owner does not decide to follow up on registering the animal with the microchip company, she says, it will trace back to the Warren County shelter if someone scans the pet. The society does this as backup, says Farrell.

"We're really trying to get every [pet] in the community microchipped," Farrell says.

Cost also is a big factor in why many pets do not have microchips, says Wood. The cost of a microchip is $30 plus registration at the Humane Society of Warren County.

Wood says many people think that a tag is enough, but it might get caught on something or get lost. Some dog and cat collars are break-away, so that they will snap off if the animal catches itself on something, preventing choking but also removing a means of identification.

Once a pet is registered with a microchip company, though, the identification is permanent. Wood cautions people to make sure that they update their contact information if they move or give the animal away, otherwise the microchip company will still possess the information of the previous owner. Updating contact information with the microchip company is free, says Wood, though he says that there might be a minimal fee if the pet changes ownership.

The Winchester SPCA works with HomeAgain, which Wood says is one of the more popular microchip identification companies. HomeAgain's Web site describes it as a comprehensive pet recovery service, which has been reuniting lost pets with their owners for more than 10 years. The 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week company also keeps records of pets' medical information and a network of veterinarians for use by its customers; it also offers wallet-size pet identification cards.

The company also will actively help pet owners find their lost pets, according to Kerri Wilfong, office manager at Apple Valley Animal Hospital in Winchester and Winchester Animal Hospital, who also works with HomeAgain.

"They're the only company that does that," Wilfong says, adding that the company offers a pet hotline and a pet poison control hotline.

"We recommend it, definitely," she says, "especially if you're traveling overseas." Wilfong explains that many countries will require that a pet have a microchip if traveling abroad.

According to Wilfong, a microchip will not only help identify a found animal as having an owner, but in the case of a stolen pet, it can prove who the owner is.

Wilfong says the biggest concern in the veterinary field and at shelters is that many different microchips are available. Each microchip company, she says, manufactures its own chip, which, when scanned at an animal shelter, will not match up with every scanner. The scanner will show that an animal does wear a microchip, but it may not show which company made the microchip. This makes it difficult for shelter employees to find out the animal's identification.

"There should be one universal chip," she says, adding that just knowing a chip is in an animal does make it easier to find the pet's owners. If the scanner that she uses does not indicate which company made the chip, then Wilfong says that she can investigate by taking the animal to another shelter or veterinarian's office to check with their scanners.

The scanner that Farrell uses at the Humane Society of Warren County will give a number for the microchip that she is scanning. She says that she can tell by the number which company made the chip, which makes it easier to identify a lost animal.

Addressing concerns about safety, Wood explains that the vet or shelter employee inserts a microchip about the size of a grain of rice between the animal's shoulder blades in a way similar to giving the animal a shot. If an animal is old enough to be adopted, then Wood says that it is old enough to have a microchip.

Farrell recommends that pet owners bring their animals to have microchips inserted at the same time they take them to be spayed or neutered, because that way the animal will already be asleep for the procedure. Though pets do not need to be asleep to receive a microchip, Farrell says that veterinarians use a big needle to insert it, so it will be easier on the pet if it is already asleep, especially if the animal is going to receive more than one shot in the same visit.

While Wood, Farrell and Wilfong have not noticed any adverse effects, pet owners might still be concerned about long term effects of the microchip. A representative of HomeAgain said that the company's mission is to save pets' lives, and it has helped to microchip more than 10 million pets since it began in 1995. The company investigates any claims of problems with its microchips and has had four confirmed cases of soft tissue tumors in animals caused by microchips since 1995, approximately equivalent to one in 2.5 million pets.

The company insists that enrolling in its database is the most effective way of protecting a pet, should it get lost, and that without the chip, 95 percent of lost pets will not return home.