Our 1- doctor small animal clinic has used Home Again for 10 years; recently, largely due to the (foolish federal deregulation?) shift in marketing strategy by Home Again that uses apparently deceptive practices (more on this in a moment*), we just recently started using the "new, ISO standard" ResQ chip marketed by Bayer.

WARNING: The entire status of 'chip protocols in the U.S. is seriously broken right now. Consider waiting as long as you can, before chipping your animal. Read on:

*Home Again, without notifying their loyal vet base, has begun contacting those with prior registration, to sell optional services that require a new ANNUAL fee around $15-20. BUT, the implication is confusing many into thinking that they MUST subscribe annually to maintain the basic registration, which is totally untrue. Home Again divorced from the AKC registry more than a year ago, and theoretically has an independent database of their own.

Wait-- it gets better.

Despite the blocking of Banfield/(PetsMart)'s proprietary chip a couple years ago, now since 2005 Congress made the mistake of opening the door to the supposed "International ISO" standard frequency chips.

Problems: Bayer is making a HUGE market push, to sell the ResQ chip. Catch? Our spiffy new reader will NOT READ the 10 years of Home Again chips we've installed. Worse, while our old HA scanner can't read AVID encoded chips, it DOES tell us one is present. The ResQ scanner, all $200 of it, violates the Federal laws of 10 years back because it MISSES even the presence of the Home Again chip. It is totally invisible, as if no chip were there at all.

(see http://rfid.home.att.net/pet-chip.htm for a very good overview of the mess)

IF we had innocently believed what we were told, we would have never thought to scan with our OLD scanner, believing the new one was "universal."

KEY Problems now: Canada, for example, while phasing out the older 125kHz freq chips that dominated in North America for 10 years, has the good sense to REQUIRE that new scanners must read the old FECAVA standard chips.

HERE in the US that key point has been lost.

Every major company now has some dog in this fight; even the AKC, perhaps misguidedly, has aligned with the TROVAN brand, also "ISO std". Problem: the chips so far have not the best reputation.

They all sound good, until you buy in and find the weaknesses in a patch-work quilt of conflicting, self-serving, market-based free-for-all.

"I know, let's let 'the marketplace' magically deal with driver's licenses". Free enterprise- imagine a dozen private 'licensing' businesses, all competing for what ultimately should be a stable, uniform, universal public service.

Each company touts their "charitable" donations of chips and even scanners, especially to shelters, without mentioning that without a true universal scanner legally required, every vet clinic (probably 10-30x more than shelters nationwide) will face the purchase of multiple scanners, to have any hope that they won't miss some oddball chip or other.

We may return the new scanner and all unused chips, go back to our at least reliable Home Again chips, and make VERY CLEAR to our clients that they do NOT have to subscribe to any annual service. In fact, the AKC registry will apparently continue to keep track of ALL chip numbers, tattoos, etc. for a lifetime fee of 12.50 (Home Again subtly bumped their fee up to 17.50 without clarifying that it was no longer the AKC registry).

The last bit of confusion which I believe came from more marketing trickery is that the entire Colorado Vet Med Association just endorsed the Bayer/ResQ system. When informed of our scanner problem, the officer I spoke with sounded a bit surprised, but mumbled something about the company "promising to make some upgrade within 6 months" or some such nonsense.

Why did they not alert us to the potential problem up front? What compells a company to "upgrade" anything, after they sold the goods? How much will they want for the upgrade?

If I appear pissed, I am. We are. The doctor feels that her reputation is at stake, if anything negative comes out of some program she even indirectly appears to endorse.

I would encourage anyone interested in these matters to read the most detailed, comprehensive sites, the manufacturers sites, independent non-profit sites, etc. and then CONTACT your own State Veterinary Association, veterinarian, and shelters, and find out what their first-hand opinions and experiences are.

I fear the professional standards of all these people are being undermined by the changes made to the previous system, and the lack of clear coordination with regard to the implementation of new standards.

Perhaps only a concerted effort to demand each State Association grow a spine, join together, and face up to the need for a national co-ordinated and unified registry and clear, true loophole-proof standards.