A beloved 10-year-old Toy Poodle, who was brought to Battersea’s London centre after being found wandering the streets alone, has now safely returned home after the charity  was able to find his owners thanks to his microchip. 

Staff were surprised to see Lammy arrive at their centre in the early hours of the new year. Thankfully for the Toy Poodle, he was microchipped, and his owners’ information was up to date on the chip’s data, allowing Battersea to quickly contact his owners. Within two hours of arriving at the centre, Lammy was reunited with his very relieved family, who had been looking for him relentlessly since he had vanished the night before.

While Lammy was reunited with his family quickly, unfortunately it is not the case for all of the stray animals that come into Battersea’s care. The charity’s 2022 annual statistics show a troubling decline in effective microchipping of both cats and dogs.

In 2022, only 18 per cent of stray dogs and two per cent of stray cats brought to Battersea were able to be reunited with their owners through a microchip, and three out of five cats (59 per cent) brought to the centres were not microchipped at all, highlighting major problems in effective feline microchipping. Whether or not an animal has a microchip with up-to-date details has a direct impact on the charity’s ability to reunite pets with their owners.   

According to the charity’s latest pet microchipping report, local authorities have also reported a nine percentage points increase from 2021 to 2023 in stray dogs without a microchip, with 72 per cent of microchipped dogs having inaccurate owner data — up significantly from 63 per cent in 2021. This is despite a legal requirement for all pet dogs to have a microchip with correct owner information since 2016. 

Battersea warns cat and dog owners that failure to keep their contact details updated on microchipping databases also leaves staff unable to notify the owners when a pet is brought into their care. 

Sarah Hughes, Rehoming and Welfare Manager at Battersea, said: "When stray dogs arrive with microchips, we can usually arrange an emotional reunion with the owners, sparing heartache for all involved. Sadly, a lot of stray dogs that we suspect are someone’s pets still don’t have microchips with accurate information, preventing us from contacting their owners. 

“With greater responsibility from pet owners to update their contact details in microchip registries, we can reunite many more pets and spare countless families from needless suffering.” 

For further advice on pet microchipping, visit the Battersea website here: https://www.battersea.org.uk/.

You can also find out more in Battersea’s latest Microchipping report here.