In shelter work, there is one situation no animal welfare advocate ever wants to see, yet it repeats itself again and again. A stray cat arrives in our care, confused, stressed, sometimes injured or ill. A staff member takes a microchip reader and scans the cat's neck area to check for a chip. There's a beep — the chip is there. "Yes!" they think. There is hope that we might quickly reunite the animal with its owner.

But then comes the disappointment. Checking the registry too often yields the same answer: the chip is not registered and therefore the owner's details are missing. The shelter receives yet another "no one's" cat. A nationwide microchipping requirement and a unified registry would significantly help alleviate this problem.

"The chip is there, but it's not in the registry." For animal lovers who follow announcements about stray animals and shelter social media posts, this phrase is all too familiar. Unfortunately, it is not an exception in shelter work, but an almost daily reality.

This is where one of the biggest misconceptions about microchipping lies. A chip itself does not automatically contain the owner's details. Essentially, a chip is just a number under the animal's skin. That number only becomes meaningful when it is linked to the owner's information in a pet registry. Without that, there is no way to identify who the animal belongs to.

This means that a chip alone is of no use — an animal with an unregistered chip remains just as anonymous as if it were not chipped at all. In conversations with pet owners, it becomes clear that registration is often left undone simply due to a lack of information. People assume that inserting the chip alone is enough.

If an animal is not entered into the registry, we cannot help it return home. We cannot contact the owner. Nor can we hold anyone accountable — not when an animal has been deliberately allowed to roam, nor when there is reason to suspect abuse.

In effect, the animal becomes "no one's" and since it cannot speak human language, we can only assume how it ended up alone on the street. For the first 14 days, responsibility lies with the local government where the animal was found as a stray; after that, it falls to an NGO to care for the animal, relying solely on donations.

In the case of dogs, we can already see how significant the impact of this simple but important procedure is. Dog ownership culture in Estonia is fortunately at a fairly good level and most dogs arriving at shelters are microchipped, registered and quickly returned to their owners.

With cats, the picture is entirely different. The vast majority are unidentified, which means they remain in shelters for much longer. We see those who can never be returned home. We see colonies that have grown from a couple of stray cats into dozens. We see cats that have died, whose owners may never learn that their pet met a tragic end.

And unfortunately, we also see that some owners simply do not care what has become of their cat and take a new animal without giving it much thought — allowing the cycle of suffering to continue. In essence, we are collecting cats in shelters, which in turn increases both the workload and financial burden on shelters and local governments.

In addition to the burden on municipalities and shelters, microchipping and registration have a direct impact on animal welfare.

Some animals adapt quickly to shelter life, others do not. We can offer the best possible shelter conditions, but being removed from a familiar home environment — surrounded by new smells, sounds, unfamiliar people and other animals — inevitably raises their stress levels. The faster an animal moves from the shelter back to its owner, the better for its welfare. For these reasons, mandatory microchipping and registration are critically important for shelters.

A law alone will not solve the problem if people do not know or understand what exactly needs to be done. Of course, legislation is necessary for major change, but so are the efforts of stakeholders and the actions of pet owners.

Animal welfare advocates have been trying to push through mandatory microchipping and registration for cats and dogs for about 15 years. We are glad that current lawmakers recognize its importance. Things are moving in the right direction and the draft law is soon heading to the government. We hope that, once it reaches the government, animal-friendly decisions will be made.

A registered microchip also helps prevent the formation of stray cat communities, or colonies, born on the streets. Microchipping helps shape the future of Estonia's pet culture. At present, municipalities and shelters are, figuratively speaking, putting out fires, but we could instead focus on prevention.

How does mandatory microchipping and registration help prevent cat colonies? Let me give a real-life example.

A cat appears under the shed of an elderly woman living in a rural area. She does not know who the cat belongs to. At present, when microchipping and registration are neither widespread nor required by law, she thinks: "Let it stay here. It probably doesn't belong to anyone and no one is looking for it. There's no point in calling anyone."

The woman feeds the cat and a few months later there are already ten cats under the shed. New litters are born. A new chain of reproduction begins.

If microchipping and registration were mandatory and widely practiced even in rural areas, the situation would be different. As soon as the first cat appeared, the woman would know that the first reasonable step is to have the cat checked for a chip, because it is the standard in Estonia, not the exception; she would contact a shelter, which would check the chip and the cat would be returned to its owner. If the chip were missing or unregistered, the shelter could already help the animal at an early stage.

Pet owners do not have to wait for the law to come into force. Already now, they can check whether their pet is microchipped and whether the chip has been entered into the registry. The nationwide pet registry allows owners to view and update the data if necessary.

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