Red is my son’s dog. I have three dogs myself, all microchipped, and it was my idea to put a chip in Red, just in case. Just as well, because when I was at my son’s recently, he let Red out at the same time as one of my dogs for just a minute and, when we went to look for them, only my dog was there. Red had taken off. We’d only just got him!

The first thing we did is call PetLink, then we put up information in Animal Control and pet rescue shelters. Then we went back to my son’s where, luckily, we found Red. It felt good knowing I had someone like PetLink to help me when Red was lost. It gave me comfort.

So, Red was quickly found but then lost again, twice in two weeks! All of a sudden he is starting to take off. You can feel happy when you are responsible enough to have your dog ID’ed. Otherwise there’s just no hope. A collar won’t stop someone from deciding the pet can be theirs, but if the pet is scanned then the vet says ‘Hmm, did you know there’s someone else registered as this dog’s legal owner?’ They can’t make up a story then. The chip stops it. At least, when your dog is chipped, you have something, you have hope.