It is a really, really good idea to micro-chip your dog.    

What is a micro-chip ?    In this context, it is a very small permanent electronic identification device, smaller than a grain of rice, that your vet can inject in the neck area just below the skin.  
This is a very simple procedure that causes absolutely no distress to your dog, ours didn't even know anything was happening - before, during or after.

Each micro-chip has a unique number that is read by a handheld scanner placed near the dogs neck.  This number is registered with a central authority that is accessible by entities such as Veterinaries, RSPCA, Dog Pounds etc. that also have these scanners.

If your dog is ever lost or stolen, you stand a very good chance of being re-united.



I would like to recall an event that I was involved with a couple years ago.

One afternoon my wife drew my attention to two dogs walking past our house, they were Keeshonds, the same breed as ours, not a particularly common breed.

They were together and we assumed they were off the lead and the owner was close behind.   But it soon became apparent that they were by themselves, wandering down the road in close company.

We could see they were both well kept and wearing collars so I chased after them with the intention of bringing them home and locating the owners but they were intent on continuing their adventure.

I returned home to get a couple of leads and some doggy treats for bribes.  By this time they were out of sight down the road and around the corner so I took after them in the car.    By the time I had located them they were wandering through the local school yard and I had lost them again.    By now it was getting dark, so I had to abandon the search.

The next morning I rang the local police, dog pound and vet hospital and left my contact details with all of them and placed a notice on the community notice board at the local shopping centre just in case my information could help the owners.

I was subsequently contacted by a man and his teenage daughter who were new in the area and were living nearby who had seen and removed my notice from the notice board.   They were clearly the owners of the dogs.

I drove them to the school where I had last seen their dogs and made enquiries there but to no avail, likewise, nobody had reported finding them with the police, dog pound etc.  
Whilst speaking with the local police, due to the agitated nature of the father, the police had cautioned us as to procedure to adopt if we did locate the dogs in someone's possession.

A couple of days passed and I checked the community notice board and found a "wanted to sell" advertisement for, you guessed it, two Keeshond dogs.
I immediately rang the advertised number and spoke with a lady who gave me a lengthy story which in essence was, the dogs were not hers but belonged to her daughter and son-in-law and at the daughters house.  She gave me a convoluted story as to why I couldn't immediately view the dogs but I am sure she was suspicious of the motive for my inquiry.  
I then contacted the people who had lost their dogs and the daughter in turn rang the dog vendor posing as a buyer as I had done but with more success.     She was given the address and the three of us drove there.  
We inadvertently called on the house across the road from that intended and was given the definite impression that the people across the road were constantly selling dogs.   (Unusual because our neighbourhood had a two dog per household limit.)

We then called on the correct house and was greeted by what I can only describe as a sleazy character in his mid twenties.   
He proceeded to give us a very convincing story about how he had owned the dogs since they were puppies but had to sell them because his wife was expecting.
He took us into the lounge room which looked out into the back yard through a pair of glass sliding doors.   There we could see six dogs including two Keeshonds all jumping up at the glass door to greet us.  After a few moments I got him out of the room by ringing his phone with the mobile phone in my pocket.   In the brief period he was gone the owners confirmed to me that the Keeshonds were theirs.   They certainly looked like the same dogs I had seen a couple of days earlier.  
We agreed to his price and told him we had to withdraw the money from the bank and would return shortly.

We immediately went to the police station expecting the police would accompany us back to retrieve the dogs.    We were told that without incontrovertible proof of ownership there was nothing they would do, it was a civil matter.  The police again cautioned the owners father, a rather fiery east European, to be very careful about how he would behave.

We decided to bluff the sleazy vendor.    We went back to his house and I told him that we knew he was a thief and liar and that we had just returned from the police and that they had told us that if he failed to return the dogs they would immediately attend and he would be charged with theft. 

Well that did the trick, he handed the dogs back without protest saying he had found them near the school and had brought them home, fed and looked after them and should be entitled to some reward.    I promptly told him his only reward was to not be placed in a horizontal position on his lounge room floor.

Over the next few days I provided his name, address and phone number and that of his mother-in-law to the police, dog pound, local council and surrounding vets and posted a notice on the same community notice board.

Now this story ended with a good result but because of the difficulty in proving a dogs identity and hence ownership we were very fortunate.

The best proof of ownership in a situation like this would been if the dogs had been micro-chipped and the numbers had been registered to the owner.

For the sake of about $80 get your dog micro-chipped.   If anything like happens to you, the outcome may not be as good.