Pet ID Chips One Story

The below article was published in the summer 2009 issue of

The Pet Planet Magazine and posted by the author.

Originally Titled "The Story of Destiny"

Perched quietly and unobtrusively on a bar stool in my friend’s bar, interpreting all the day’s problems as presented by Fox News, expectedly my wife and son charged in and yanked me away from the nice cold bottle of beer I was sipping to solve the day’s most pressing situation. Unfortunately my friend’s bar is located right next door to a Petland. The issue at hand appeared to be Sheltie or Yorkie-Poo. Now this is an “issue” I had been trying to avoid for months since losing our last dog to “mysterious circumstances (another story). At this point, on Valentine’s Day 2007, with two sets of shining eyes staring at me, the only decision making paradigm left to me was big or small. The choice, as if I really had one, was the $1300.00, “But Dad she’s on sale for only $850.00”, Yorkie-Poo. So, as I tried to rationalize the expense, mainly to myself, since the neither the boy, nor my beautiful wife cared, Nicolette came into our home.

Nicolette, or Nico as she has come to be called, was a 15-week old blond little fluff ball, part puppy and part baby Wookiee. Well Nico learned how not to damage the carpets too much and provided ample happiness enough for the boy to forget all the promises of care and for my wife to pick up the slack without complaint. So after spending her first 15 weeks in a cage Nico’s next 40 were spent earning a home and a family.

Almost exactly one year from Nico’s acquisition, as my wife was leaving for work, her cell phone rang, after a rather rushed and harried hello she heard, “ Good Morning ma’am, do you know where your dog is?”

With Nico bouncing good-byes at her feet the call left my wife somewhat confused as to why the Sumter County Animal Control unit was calling her. “Ma’am are you sure? We have your dog here in Lake Panasoffkee.”

Laughingly my wife explained to the officer the impossibilities of a dog of Nico’s stature being capable of traveling twenty-six miles in just a few seconds, especially since teleportation has yet to be metaphysically conceived and the part for Underdog had already been cast. Still the officer insisted, “Ma’am we scanned your dog and I assure you, she is here,”

After a few minutes of non-sarcastic conversation it was obvious there was some type of mistake, most likely a paperwork error somewhere. Later that morning my wife told me about the odd phone call and now that curiosity had set in she was going to take Nico to get her chip scanned. The chip, a product of AVID (American Veterinary Identification Devices) is a permanent radio-frequency identification (RFID) microchip implanted just under the skin to permanently identify a particular animal to track lost, stolen, or just plain missing pets. The procedure is as simple as scanning your groceries and in Nico’s case the chip in her shoulder told us that she was indeed, not her. The dog in the animal control office however was “Nico”.

Obviously the chips, numbers, documentation and their registrations had gotten all mixed up. A fact we discovered the deeper we got into investigating what happened. We started digging through all the Petland documents and discovered we had paperwork from two different puppies that had been in the same cage at the store. One was identified as a Black and Tan, the other, the blonde, was Nico. My wife called the animal control facility and explained what we found and supplied the chip number in Nico’s shoulder for them to run an ID check. AVID would not reveal owner information to us.

The Animal Control Officers did follow through, traced the chip number, found the identity of the little Black and Tan’s owners. They made multiple phone calls and left messages, but to no avail. They told my wife they could only hold the Black and Tan for seven days but then…..

Well the more we talked about it the more curious we got and began investigating further. By this time the Petland we purchased Nico from was out of business so we couldn’t get information from their records. Our vet told us Petland uses distributors like the Hunte Corporation to obtain puppies, which we confirmed in our purchase documents. So we contacted Hunte and in speaking with them they confirmed the above. Hunte either would not or could not track “our puppies” even with the AVID numbers, invoices, etcetera.

They would however speak in generalities, these generalities led us to the conclusions and decisions that follow. The Hunte spokesperson told my wife the AVID microchips implanted may not be used in sequential order, puppies are usually purchased from breeders in litters and to us what will seem most important; puppies are either chipped by the breeders or in litters soon upon arrival.

We already had enough proof to surmise that Nico and the Black & Tan were at the very least cage mates in the store, but we began to suspect much more. My wife made another call to Sumter County Animal Control inquiring into the Black and Tan’s status, which remained unclaimed, and with only a day left the Governor had not called with a stay.

By Friday morning, the Black and Tan’s last day, my wife, Ellyn, couldn’t wait any longer to confirm our suspicions, she called the shelter informing them she was coming to see the little stray. Now, I knew at this point there was no way the state was going to be allowed to enforce over population controls on this little enigma. I began to adjust myself to the future “surprise” announcement of another pet in the house; “another” being an addition to the string of cockatiels, a 17 year-old contender for the world’s most ugly cat and Nico. Ellyn and our friend BK loaded Nico in the car and made the trip from our Lake County home to the Sumter County animal shelter to see the Black and Tan. Ellyn asked BK to come along in an effort to temper what had become biased feelings with an honest assessment, (like that was gonna change anything). Upon arrival they were met by an attendant and according to that attendant the stray looked nothing like Nico. “First of all this animal is a male, it’s gray and definitely “not” a designer dog”.

But my wife insisted and they were all introduced the scruffiest little “dog” in the place, but the attendant was right about one thing, it was a dog. The gray was just the grime from being a stray for what appeared to be weeks, the dog was female and her little face, according to all, sans the wookie hair-doo, looked exactly like Nico.

Fifty-eight dollars later and they were all traveling back to Lake County where I met them at a riverside hideaway to be introduced our new little addition. I had to admit she was the cutest little thing, immediately personable, a little grubby, but nothing a bath and a good diet couldn’t cure. Ultimately given the circumstances of her journey to us, her name became Destiny.

We have been told that females don’t usually hit it off to well and we should be prepared for some angst, wrong. Within twenty minutes of their arrival both dogs were sleeping in my wife’s lap, intertwined so tightly you couldn’t tell whose legs were whose. We noticed many similarities between the two.  Their facial features, tooth structures, body frames were exactly the same, right down to one white claw on the left rear paw. But mostly, these two were the sweetest, most good-natured little animals that held an obvious affection for us and for each other. From the interaction with each other it was clear they knew each other, remembered each other, and not, we were sure, just as cage mates, they must be sisters.

We are still attempting to confirm this and without a DNA test probably impossible. I was able to track Destiny’s breeder and she was able to confirm the litter of six Destiny was born to also had a female golden and that the entire litter was sold to Hunte on December 16^th 2006, however this litter was 50% Yorkshire Terrier & 50% Bichon Frise. It appears our Petland Yorkie-Poos are instead Yo-Chons or Yorkons depending on which breed resource is applied. Given troubles at Petland and Hunte of late the trail has gone cold.

Whether “Poos” or “Kons” it really doesn’t matter, as long as I don’t think about the over inflated price tag supported by the blatant lie of an F-1 rated AKC recognized Yorkie –Poo designer puppy. I have sent pictures to the breeder for her opinion, what do you think? No matter what the DNA reveals we are sure enough, Nico and Destiny are sisters and at home together again.