Originally published at: Puppy stolen at gunpoint | Boing Boing
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Gah! Evil bastard!
Do pets get chipped in the States?
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Yes, but I’m not sure how helpful that is with stolen. I know of an incident recently where a neighbor stole somebody’s chipped dog and the police didn’t want to get involved, unbelievably.
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Yeah but its not like that’s going to help much, if you take a stolen dog to a vet they would never check to see if its chipped unless they have a reason to do so.
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Thanks for the updates @algomeysa2 & @Grey_Devil.
That’s a massive shame and makes me very sad for the owner, and angry at the easy dismissal of such a traumatic event.
Pets are family members >:(
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Our vet checks our dogs chip at her checkups to make sure everything is working and it hasn’t moved! I don’t know if that is common practice or not.
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I havent taken my cat to the vet in a few years but there was about a good 4 years that i was regularly taking him and they never checked his chip once so it may depend on the particular vet
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You know, this was her first yearly checkup since she got the chip so maybe they just check it one time?
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Are Akitas particularly valuable?
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Dog Owner Paranoia, I have it bad. Now…
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If they’re purebred, 100% yes
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Fucking hell. My phone, wallet, car, I’d have handed over, but I would literally take a bullet before I gave them my dog.
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We used to have a cat with a strong sense of wanderlust who on two separate occasions disappeared for long periods and both times we got her back home after the family that had assumed she was a stray and taken her inside took her to a vet and they checked the chip. I don’t know if they only checked because they identified the cat as a stray, but the chip was definitely key in getting her home (she refused to wear a collar and was quite adept at taking them off herself).
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That’s always helpful, but that’s making the assumption that a given family is honest enough to want to look for a family if the cat already has one. There are definitely people who might want to keep a pet enough that they would purposefully not check for a chip
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I got the impression that it was the vet who checked not the family who requested a check. In both cases there was a considerable amount of time before they took the cat to the vet (months) and in one case the family didn’t actually want to give her back.
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My cat is 8 and the vets i’ve taken him to have never checked for a chip so my point there is that i don’t think you’re guaranteed that its something that will be looked at. Although that does remind me that i need to update the contact info for the chip
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If you steal my puppy; I’m turning into John Wick.
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Akitas grow up to be massive, gorgeous dogs!
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Fair enough. It seems like maybe we got lucky.
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If I had a dog, I think I would try to fashion a collar with hidden cellphone tech that would allow me to “find my device”. Even if the collar was discarded, it might be close to the robber’s home turf.
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