When I was 12 years old, we had a family dog named Feathers. Part long-haired terrier and part dachshund, Feathers was all fun. Bright eyes and a bundle of soft fur, she was a furious little ball of life. Always game for any adventure, she went everywhere I went. Feathers was small, but she was the very definition of fearless and everyone who knew her loved her — none more so than me. We had a special bond and there was nothing I wouldn’t do to protect her. And then one day she just disappeared. I turned my head for an instant and, just like that, she was gone.

You see them every day — signs tacked to telephone polls or coffee shop bulletin boards — lost pet notices. Some have a picture, some offer rewards, some are typed, some are just scrawled in a frantic hand, but they all convey a sense of the owner’s desperate urgency to find their lost pet. The sad fact is that most of these lost pet notices don’t end with a happy story. Over 4 million pets are euthanized each year. Sadder still is that many of these pets have simply been separated from loving homes where family members would do anything to get these animals safely home.

Micro-chipping for pets might sound like something out of a science fiction film, but in reality, this method is the safest, cheapest way to make sure your pet can always be identified. When considering the benefits of micro-chipping, the facts speak for themselves: six to eight million pets enter U.S. shelters each year and many of those animals are lost. One in three family pets will get lost in their lifetimes and without I.D., 90 percent of those pets will never be returned home. A microchip, simply put, gives lost pets the best fighting chance of being found.

The system is utilized when a microchip with a unique ID number is injected between the shoulder blades of your pet. This procedure can be done by a veterinarian if your pet is not already micro-chipped. The average cost of such a procedure is a $45 flat fee. The process is relatively painless, probably similar to getting one’s ears pierced. Once your pet is micro-chipped, the next step is enrolling your pet's microchip ID, along with your contact information, with a recovery service that works with the National Pet Recovery Database.

This step is critical to reuniting you immediately with your lost pet once he is found. One such service is HomeAgain, which claims to recover over 10,000 pets a month — 120,000 each year and over 600,000 since the service started operating ten years ago. These statistics add up to one overwhelmingly positive result — a tiny microchip gives your lost pet the best fighting chance of being returned home safely.

Shelters and pet recovery services now check all pets for chips as soon as they arrive as standard procedure. If your pet has a chip, its chances of being returned to you are dramatically increased. And many services offer more than just a microchip. For example, the service offered by HomeAgain Pet Recovery will instantly send lost pet alerts to animal shelters, veterinary clinics, and volunteer Pet Rescuers in the area your pet was lost as a standard part of their membership services.

Despite the benefits, microchips have been slow to catch on with many pet owners. To date, only three to four percent of dogs — and less than one percent of cats — arriving in shelters have microchips. If those numbers were higher, a lot more lost pets would be going home to warm houses and worried owners. Collars are a great way to identify pets, but a collar can get lost or a pet can become lost at a time when they are not wearing their tags. Microchips are the only permanent form of pet identification, with a unique number that cannot fall off, be altered, or be removed. A lot of people are afraid the technology will harm their pets, but the procedure and the chips have undergone extensive testing. The fact is, the chips are probably safer than the average dog collar.

Feathers, the lost dog I spoke of at the beginning of this story, was eventually — against all odds — found about a month after she disappeared. She had traveled some 30 miles from home. Her collar was gone and her fur was matted with brambles and knots. She also had some new habits that hinted she had been living with someone who fed her from the table. I didn’t care. I was just happy to have her back and vowed never again to let her out of my sight when we were outside. I didn’t — and she lived a long and happy life. Micro-chipping didn’t exist at the time, but if it had, I might have brought her home again a whole lot sooner.