Don’t Let Your Pet Stay Lost

Another day, another lost pet. While our area may not be unique, it sure seems like there are a lot of lost and found pets, especially in Delta. When we get a stray at our shelter, staff first scan them for a microchip and check whether they have a tag. More often than not, our found-pet posts include this phrase: “no chip, no collar, and no tag.” This makes it difficult to facilitate a happy reunion if the pet is loved and the family wants to be reunited. In 2025, our Ridgway campus reunited 35 stray pets with their families, but this was only about 35% of the strays we took in. In Delta, these numbers are drastically different. Since assuming operations in May, only about half of the 40 stray dogs we’ve taken in have been reunited with their families.

We can easily change these dreary statistics with the simple prevention approach of microchipping. Microchips are harmless and very tiny, approximately the size of a grain of rice. We implant them quickly and painlessly into the subcutaneous layer of your pet’s skin. A scanner can read the serial number they are encoded with and immediately track it to the pet parent listed in the database.

As with any ID method, pet parents must keep their database information up to date. More than once, pets have arrived at Second Chance with a microchip that did not link to an active phone or address, thus rendering it useless. Every pet adopted from SCHS has a microchip, and we input the information adopters provide on their application to ensure accuracy. But if you move or change your phone number, it’s important to update your pet’s microchip to reflect those changes.

Microchips do not require a battery or other power source, so they are good for the life of your pet and they are virtually free of health risks (according to the American Veterinary Medical Association, data collection on pet microchips since 1996 have shown only 391 adverse reactions among over 4 million pets microchipped, less than 0.0001 percent).

A microchip implant helps recover lost pets and can be scanned by animal shelters, animal control, veterinarians' offices, or any entity that uses scanners to identify lost pets. Although they are a great invention that truly makes a difference, not everyone who encounters a lost pet has a microchip scanner. We highly recommend that your pet have a collar with a tag. That way, when your lost dog shows up down the road at the neighbor’s house, they can call you- and your dog is home faster.

Since 1994, the Animal Resource Center and the Shops of Second Chance Humane Society have been dedicated to serving animals in Southwestern Colorado. Our adoption hours are every day from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. We are located at 177 County Rd 10, Ridgway, CO. You can view our shelter pets and services online at secondchancehumane.org.