THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 6, 1997 TAG: 9701060043
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MEREDITH COHN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: 100 lines
Animals can't phone home. But Geri and Doug Henry believed if their dogs wandered away from the yard, their identifying tattoos would allow someone else to make that call.
That didn't happen for the couple, though. During the years, three of their dogs escaped or were stolen, and the phone did not ring.
``If you think when your dog is stolen or disappears you're going to get him back because of the tattoo, that's not true,'' said Geri Henry, who runs a pet grooming business in Chesapeake and once offered tattoo services to other pet owners. ``We still think the tattoos are better than nothing, but we were just disenchanted with them enough to stop offering the service.''
At least a half a dozen others in South Hampton Roads still tattoo pets, usually with the owner's Social Security number. And animal experts say while there are no guarantees, any form of identification - from tattoos to collars and tags to microchips - is helpful in reuniting pets with their owners.
Tattoos are gaining in popularity, and, at the same time, awareness about them is rising, said an official at the National Dog Registry, a private service that maintains a list of owners and their pets' numbers. That has helped the registry claim an overall success rate in returning pets home of better than 90 percent, said the registry.
Supporters of tattoos also believe they can work as a deterrent to pet thieves, said Ellen Alexander, a Norfolk resident who has been in the pet tattoo business for 18 years. Alexander encourages pet owners to use a sign on their house or fence that indicates the pets have tattoos.
``Nothing is 100 percent, but it's like some insurance if they are missing,'' she said. ``It's also proof the animals are yours.''
Betty Rapoport, who started the National Dog Registry in 1966 after her own dog, Bjorn, disappeared, has seen more than six million animals, including ferrets, llamas, goats and horses, added to the list of tattooed animals. The U.S. Department of Agriculture registered some frogs recently.
The registry charges a one-time fee of $38 per pet owner with no limit on animals. Agents, also listed with the registry, charge around $8 to $10 for the tattoo.
``My dog was stolen from our Princeton, N.J., home, and we became aware that six or seven other dogs were missing in our neighborhood, so we figured a butcher had gone through and taken them,'' Rapoport said. ``We followed his route down the East Coast, but we never recovered our dogs. With no collar and no tags you can't prove the dogs are yours.''
Rapoport warned, however, that the tattoos provide no guarantee and owners should still use a collar with identification tags and not leave pets unattended outside. Retrieving pets also can take time, depending on who finds the animal, whether the tattoo is easily readable and whether the surface - usually inside a hind leg - is kept free of fur. Maintaining up-to-date photos also can help identify a pet.
Some people don't look for tattoos, or ignore them. Last year, the registry reunited an Ohio woman with her miniature Doberman pinscher 9 1/2 years after the dog disappeared. A veterinarian had just noticed the dog's tattoo.
Some owners looking for other means to protect their pets have turned to microchips that are inserted under the animals' skin. Rapoport said the chips have some problems because they can move around or malfunction and can be read only by a scanner - which many shelters and veterinarians do not have. Also, several companies produce the chips, and not all scanners can read all chips.
Kathy Umberger, the Chesapeake Animal Control Bureau's coordinator, said her agency has a scanner but has never detected a chip. She said workers will continue to look for chips and tattoos on all strays.
The animal bureau handles about 5,600 animals a year. Of those, 2,600 are lost pets that are never claimed, despite the workers' best efforts to locate owners, she said.
``With cats, especially, few are claimed, and I'm not sure what people think happens to them,'' she said.
Umberger said a local ordinance allows neighbors to turn in animals that stray into their yard. The animal bureau loans out 30 traps that capture animals humanely, she said. Pet owners not aware of the law don't realize their animals could have been trapped by neighbors and picked up by bureau agents.
``Animals can live a long and happy life indoors,'' she said. ``And if you do keep them inside, they still need to have a collar or identification because you never know when they can get outside. I can't tell you how many times I've heard from owners who don't know how their pets got out and they can't find them.''
Geri Henry eventually found two of her three lost dogs herself, the first at an animal shelter and the other in a neighbor's yard. But the trauma of the events pushed her to take more precautions. She now brings her two standard poodles and one English cocker spaniel to work at her Animal Glamour pet grooming shop.
``And, yes, they have tattoos,'' she said. ``It can't hurt.'' MEMO: The National Dog Registry can be reached at 800-NDR-DOGS ILLUSTRATION: Pet tattoos are offered in several South Hampton Roads
locations, but Geri Henry, with her dog Sugar, no longer offers the
service at Animal Glamour, her Chesapeake grooming business.
MORT FRYMAN
The Virginian-Pilot
[Second photo ran in North Carolina Edition only.]
MORT FRYMAN photos
The Virginian-Pilot
Identification numbers are usually tattooed on the inside of the
pet's hind leg. The numbers, and the owner's information, are
registered with national directories.