The Accepted Mission
Today’s mission: chipping cats! (Let’s make this clear off the bat: this course on how to chip a cat trained us how to insert chips into cats and not how to make chips out of cats!😉)
Chipping dogs and equines in the Netherlands is mandatory so this needs to be carried out by a vet. Sadly it’s not yet mandatory for cats which means it’s more difficult to hold owners accountable for neglect or for abandonment of their cat. And a cat without a chip is more difficult to reunite with her owners if she gets lost. Hopefully the law on cat chipping will change, but until then, I’ll be able to chip cats for responsible cat owners.
On that note, the animal ambulance offers a cat chipping service, so the skills I learn today will be immediately practical. That said, I feel chipping a cat will be an impossible mission! Just getting my cat into a pet carrier is hard work, as is replacing her collar which she keeps losing (including the one with the airtag on it…).
Let’s see!
Setting the Scene
Dierenlot is a friendly place, and I’ve been pleased to note the pleasant camaraderie amongst course attenders. So it was a natural gesture to greet and offer my hand to couple of fellow students in the car park. It turned out these guys were the trainers! And it also turned out, as my co-worker who I travelled with pointed out, they’re pretty famous for podcasts and youtube channels and things in the realm of animal welfare!
I had no idea! My partner, their adoring fan, suggested I shouldn’t wash my hands as I’ve shaken theirs! I wasn’t so sure. I wash my hands after dogs slobber over me, and even though these guys weren’t slobberers, forgive me but I’m still gonna wash my hands as usual! 😉
So ‘meet’ course trainers Piet Hellemans and Franca Borren, vets and ambassadors for Stichting DierenLot! (Sorry I have no pictures, but keep an eye out for Franca’s nailpolish in one photo).
On another note, another driver and co-driver from the animal ambulance came to the course too. Was this going to mean competition between us to chip cats?!
The Training
The training was barely 2 hours which made it sharp and succinct. No bullshit, no fluff, just friendly hard-core practical advice. Brilliant!
Franca dived straight into hygiene (for example, washing hands! 😉 ), then on to how to hold the cat (with demonstration), and how to deliver the microchip with a needle inserted into uplifted skin (also with demonstration!). And what to look out for to avoid things going wrong. Then it was our turn!
I and my driver happened to be sitting closest to the demonstration table which meant we were also closest to the cuddly dog – which we nabbed quickly for a slightly more realistic practice experience! The dog is bigger than any cat we’d chip, but working with it meant we could also practice how to hold the cat steady during the procedure, as well as how to work around each others’ arms.
Cats are notoriously difficult to work with – and also for being clean. This is why we didn’t practice with real cats but with kitchen cloths!
(And also because the texture of the cloth is about the same as a cat’s skin 😉).
Franca and Piet watched each of us in both roles as cat holder and cat chipper, and gave us tips / corrected us as we performed. This was invaluable!
A few particularly interesting points:
- It’s important to insert the needle from behind the cat. Then if the cat runs away, she’ll be running away from the needle.
- A cat out of her familiar surrounding sees the needle as less of a threat amongst other perceived threats in a new environment, than a cat who already feels safe in familiar surroundings.
- The chipping procedure causes a little pain, so it’s best the owners aren’t in the cat’s view to avoid the cat associating the pain with them.
- Holding the cat steady is more difficult than the actual chipping procedure.
- Getting the injection out of the plastic / cardboard wrapper is more difficult that holding the cat steady.
After the Break
An announcement: we all ‘passed’ and now we’re “Chippers“! 🙂
The Dutch love red tape, but in this case I can forgive them!
Piet headed up the second section with the administrative side of things. This is important because the whole idea of the chip is to couple the cat it’s inside with a database entry that contains information pertaining to the cat as well as the (registered) owner. Red tape is a bind (ha ha) but it helps ensure security.
Piet explained the chipping process isn’t simply sticking a chip inside a cat; it’s also ensuring the logging and registration of the chip, and informing the owners what they need to do regarding entering / updating the information.
There are still a number of administrative steps on our side as chippers that we need to take, such as registering ourselves with the authorities. I understand these steps will be emailed to us later.
In Closing
What a brilliant course! I loved how it was delivered, and even though we didn’t practice on real cats, we leave with the opportunity to actually do this on real cats!
But am I really ready to chip a real cat after I’ve only practiced with a kitchen cloth? I hope so. And surprisingly to learn about myself…I feel ready! 🙂
At Home
Let sleeping cats lie.
I was keen to practice lifting the skin on my pet cat. But she was sleeping when I got home and I simply didn’t have the heart to wake her from her nap! Did I just need to ‘man up’ about the whole thing? I suppose when an owner brings in their cat for chipping then this stage will already have been dealt with, so not really. I’m man enough! 😉
I joined her on the settee with a cuppa (I’m English) and pondered over the afternoon. Semi-snooze style.
Bedtime story
My wife came home from work with a story about an idiot teenager (my words). He’d clearly been sent on an errand to the supermarket by his parents, and cycled home holding a number of items loose in one of his hands. Then his phone rang which he endeavoured to answer by taking his other hand off the handlebars. As my wife overtook him, he veered to the centre of the road so she rang her bell and called out. She met with a gormless look; he wore earpods and was oblivious to the world around him.
I mention this story because I think there’s an argument for chipping this kind of idiot teenager so these ‘animals’ can likewise be returned to their owners before any harm comes to them. Or more importantly, to others.
Back to an animal I love and respect!
My cat likes sleeping, but not all the time. And during one of her awake (and inside) moments, it was my time to shine and do the skin thing!
The bad news is my cat wears a collar with a bell so birds hear her coming and fly to safety. This makes it difficult to reach the right area on the back of her shoulder.
The good news is that the collar fell off this morning (it’s actually bad news but I’m trying to be positive).
And I’m pleased to report that pinching and lifting up her skin went well! Not in the sense that she loved the experience, but in the sense that there is indeed plenty of space between her skin and her muscles to place a chip (note: obviously she’s already chipped) – and she’s a young adult with presumably relatively taut skin.
This gives me enormous confidence that cat skin is indeed similar to the kitchen cloth we practiced with, and this being the case, I think I’ll do OK when it comes to chipping a real cat and being part of the help process in reuniting lost cats to their owners!
Thank you Franca and Piet for giving me the chance to chip cats, Stichting Dierenlot Academie for organising and making the workshop available, and Dierenambulance Nederrijn for letting me volunteer there so I’m allowed on the course! 🙂
