DEFRA - pet passport - microchips can fail!

pimiento

I am writing this from 'exile' in Spain, after my 1 year old Lowchen's chip could not be read in Calais last Sunday and she was refused entry to the UK. The process for a failed microchip is that the dog either goes directly into quarrantine whilst the procedures are followed, or they stay abroad. I did not choose quarrantine, or to stay in France.

Sidetracking slightly, but pet owners should be aware of this too - I saw a lot of people denied entry (I was the only failed chip). It was not the owners getting the timings wrong, it was vets (all French) getting the process wrong - failure to stamp the passport in 3 places, failure to enter the time of treatment, even doing the wrong treatment (Stronghold does NOT do ticks - even I knew that). These people were all getting sent to Calais vets, and the one we saw that tried to read our chip took cash only (and plenty of it)...

So I have returned to our excellent Spanish vet (apart from they didn't check the chip when they did the passport). The chip has been found by feel, location confirmed by xray, still didn't read, so it had to be surgically removed (DEFRA's rules) to be sent to the manufacturer to see if they can read it. I now have a 2-3 week wait for that. If it doesn't read, my passport can go in the bin and I have to start again.

The chip had moved from the back/shoulder area to the front left chest area, and the plastic casing was broken, resulting in body fluids getting into the chip and it then failing.

So this is a warning to all pet owners - if you plan to travel get the chip read before you go. Even if you don't use the pet passport scheme, get the chip checked from time to time in case your dog gets lost.

It's VERY difficult and expensive when it goes wrong, and DEFRA is outstanding in it's lack of help. "Visit our website" does NOT, in my opinion constitute help, when you already have, and the information is not there.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

That's a very helpful post, pimiento. I'm sorry to hear your troubles though. Although I can think of worse places to be in exile with my pets.


Simple as asking the vet to read it every year you get the booster jabs done, really.


Just wish you weren't wise as a result of bitter experience

pimiento

Yes, I'm lucky to have somehwere to be with my dogs, unfortunately without my husband who had to go back for work.

This would have been year 4 of using the scheme, the previous 3 years the chips didn't get checked in Spain (2 dogs - we lost the oldest last November), and all had been totally straightforward.

Chips are 'sold' as being for life, and we trusted them. This one was only about 8 months old (the dog is 1 year).

Who would have believed they would be in a breakable casing? I've now read of some american ones in glass casings that have broken and failed. Ours was american, although came from Identichip (UK) so we wouldn't have known. The broken casing was plastic. Glass or plastic, it probably doesn't do the dog much good when it breaks.

So far in hotels, return travel (tolls, fuel) and the vet removing the chip this has cost us over 500 euros, but the vet part was 128.25 and I have read of people paying over 1000 for that alone in Calais.

spookylukey

What a nightmare - hope you can get it sorted without too much more kerfuffle.

Have you spoken to the chip manufacturer? My cats microchip 'migrated' to his armpit, it still reads but I wasn't happy that it would be found if he was ever lost & scanned as if he was in a strange vets/rescue centre he would hunch himself up.

I spoke to the chip company and they sent out a new chip for my vets to implant and wrote a letter saying they would cover any costs if an op was ever needed to remove it. I chose to leave it where it is as it doesn't cause him any issues and I'm not planning on emigrating so he won't be leaving the country!

pimiento

we have to be very careful in any dealings with the chip comapny at this point, as DEFRA states very clearly that the chip company should not be told the number of the failed chip. our dog can only be identified and relinked to her passport if the company can read the chip without already knowing the number!

but yes, once this is resolved one way or the other, we will be taking issue with the chip company. if they are providing something that is as heavily depended on as this is - it is the ONLY means of id acceptable by DEFRA, i think they should accept responsibility when it fails.

apparently you can't take DEFRA to Court for having a rubbish system that has no backup - a chip might be the quickest cheapest means of id to use 99% of the time, but there should be something better than this for the 1%. the fact that they have a procedure (however convoluted that is) on their website for chip failure says something to me.

frankly I don't rate a system that relies 100% on a microchip, and requires an animal to undergo surgery when it fails. nor do i rate companies casing microchips in breakable materials.

both the pet passport scheme and microchipping are publicised as lifetime of the animal. most people, myself included, accept this without question. more fool me.

albacookie

If it turns out they can't read the chip and he needs a new passport did you know the rules are changing in January?
The blood test and 6 month wait will no longer be needed - just have to wait 3 weeks after the rabies vaccine.

pimiento

yes I did know, but thank-you for telling me. I'm afraid I've had to become a bit of an expert on DEFRA's rules this last week. but January is still 3 months to go living apart from my husband.

she already has her new (EU Spanish) passport, as DEFRA's rules are that a new chip has to go in at the same time the broken one comes out - there can be no gap. And Spanish law says that chip and passport go together - you cannot have 1 without the other. This doesn't quite fit with DEFRA's procedure that the new chip must be implanted with a note kept of the number, pending the attempted reading of the old chip, and DEFRA will not say how the EU passport fits in if the old chip can be read.

in response to the earlier post about getting the chip read with the annual booster, I would say this would work fine to just check on it if you're not using the passport scheme, but if you're travelling I would get it checked just before leaving the uk, and make sure the vet you go to for the return treatments does read the chip.
(also check they stamp, date, time & sign in all 3 places, and do the right treatment!)

in my case this may not have helped - I went to Spain at the beginning of July, the chip was new last November, read for the passport in January, and I think was checked on another later occasion too. the only thing that would have helped slightly was reading it in Spain before setting off, which would have saved the drive to Calais and back, but not the operation and the 'exile'.

*Robin*

One of my dogs is on his third chip. Maybe I'm lucky that my Spanish vet always checks it's working when she does the paperwork before we travel back to the UK. If a chip fails she replaces it and puts a note in the passport saying she guarantees it's the same dog who had previous chip number xxxxxetc. With an extra official stamp, that's been enough to satisfy the officers who check the paperwork before embarkation.

However the rules about what exactly should be entered on the passports seems to change frequently. The last time I travelled a couple of months ago, I was required to ask a vet near the port to re-issue both dogs' 18 month old passports because a detail had changed. The vet had to 'phone my vet, who faxed across the dogs' records, then the local vet wrote out completely new passports for both animals (including every vaccination, sticker and comment). It took three hours and cost 130€ - luckily we didn't miss the boat though it was a close thing!
My oldest dog has had five passports since the PFP system was introduced. I joke that the dogs are far better documented than my children.

Though it's good news that the rules are being relaxed, there may be a problem for owners who have an older dog which was not part of the scheme since puppyhood. My vet is very worried about the effect this will have on Spanish street-dogs who are re-homed in N Europe by several charities.

pimiento

Robin you have been VERY lucky as that is not DEFRA's acceptable practice at all. Perhaps they are a little more flexible at the ferry terminal (was it Spain or France?) - for me, what your vet did SHOULD be accepted, and as our vet knows our dogs this SHOULD have been the common sense way to resolve our problem. But common sense and/or flexibility does not seem to be allowed, and I guarantee you that you would not get through the tunnel.

The tunnel staff warned us as we left - if a vet says they can put a new chip in and change it in the passport, do not accept it as we will not let you through. The chip has to come out and be sent away.

*Robin*

pimiento wrote: »

Robin you have been VERY lucky as that is not DEFRA's acceptable practice at all. Perhaps they are a little more flexible at the ferry terminal (was it Spain or France?) - for me, what your vet did SHOULD be accepted, and as our vet knows our dogs this SHOULD have been the common sense way to resolve our problem. But common sense and/or flexibility does not seem to be allowed, and I guarantee you that you would not get through the tunnel.

The tunnel staff warned us as we left - if a vet says they can put a new chip in and change it in the passport, do not accept it as we will not let you through. The chip has to come out and be sent away.

Sometimes I sail from Spain, sometimes from France. Overall my experience has been better in Spain (but the paperwork is Spanish so that may be why the Spanish officials are less, um, officious).

The dog on his third chip; both earlier chips travelled round his body over a period of up to a year before having been expelled (this is the vet's opinion). So there was nothing to remove and send away.
Out of my four dogs, two have had chips that failed - but we joined PFP when it first started and at that time the chip technology was very new. My vet told me it isn't uncommon that they fail.
The chips that moved and were expelled were implanted between the dog's shoulder blades.
One of my dogs has had the same chip for nine years - that one was implanted in the European way, behind the left ear.

pimiento

DEFRA's rule if there is no chip to be found is that you have to start again with a new passport, rabies jab, blood test, so I still think the tunnel staff would have refused you. From Jan 1st, as I assume your dog gets regular boosters, I think you would satisfy the rules again!

When I phoned my vet in a panic last sunday he said chips that get expelled normally do so through the entry route within a few days. Once they've stayed in that long they usually stay in, and migration is usually within the skin (fortunately mine was, or we would not have had it removed). I believe more up to date chips now have anti migration coatings. I'm not sure if they are still in breakable casings - it doesn't seem very easy to find out, but I'm not giving up!