Tattoos Can Help You and Your Pet

August 05, 2009 -Tattoos for Pets

One of the great debates among pet owners is identification of pets: microchip vs. tattoo, especially on dogs.

Tattoos have many adherents, and they make a good case for their side of the issue, one of the more compelling arguments being that it is prohibited for any facility using animals in research to have an animal with an ID tattoo.

It's a good reason, even though it isn't true.

Is Tattooing Your Pet Illegal?

It is a popularly disseminated belief that any tattooed animal is against the law for a research facility to have on premises, but that is manifestly untrue, as tattoos are one way research labs keep tabs on the animals they use.

At one time, ear tattoos were fairly prevalent, but people (and I use that term loosely) who stole animals to sell to research labs would cut off ears to remove the tell-tale ID tattoo.

Once this practice came to light, the preferred placement of the identifying mark moved to the inner thigh or even the belly. However, since thieves are often ignorant of the actual law and believe the prohibition to be true, a visible ID tattoo makes your pet a much less desirable target.

The truth behind tattoos and research labs is found in Section 4.8.1 of the Animal Care Resource Guide/Research Facility Inspection Guide, under the guidelines set by the Animal Welfare Act.

Choosing a Tattoo Artist

A visible tattoo can be a deterrent for someone who steals animals or even just finds a lost animal and decides to keep it. Tattoos are visible and each tattoo utilizes a unique piece of information, whether it is the owner's social security number (bad idea in this day of identity theft), or a unique series of digits that is registered with one of the national registries.

One of the strikes against tattooing vs. the microchip is that a tattoo can be altered; a microchip is there, under the skin where it is difficult to tamper with or remove and recovery information should be on file and easily retrievable at a central database.

Microchips vs. Tattoos

Organizations that help locate lost animals often recommend a combination of the two techniques, along with a collar with either tags or an engraved plate with information, since not everyone who finds a lost pet -- or is offered one under less than stellar circumstances -- will think to check for an invisible microchip. One of the more common practices is to chip your pet, then have a mark� with a circle around it tattooed on the belly or inner thigh to indicate the presence of a microchip.

Is Tattoing Your Pet Painful to It?

There is also much debate over whether or not animals, and dogs in particular, suffer significant discomfort when being tattoooed.You can find numerous video clips of pets being tattooed.

Most are exhibiting no real signs of pain or discomfort, other than not being thrilled at being held down. The argument for tattooing is that it is not painful for a dog in the same way it is for a human is because of the difference in the structure of animal skin compared to human skin.

Tattoo ink must penetrate through the outer layer of skin (epidermis) and leave its traces in the second, or inner layer. The human epidermis is much thicker and the deeper layers are uneven; canine (and most other animal) have a thin, smooth epidermis and shallower, more uniform inner layers, so the ink on a pet's tattoo does not have to penetrate as deeply to be effective and permanent.

There are no pain sensors found in the epidermis; those are in the deeper layers of the skin. The sensors located in the epidermis are geared to pick up tactile information, though, like tickling, so your pet may squirm under the needle.�

And, even if there is some discomfort in the tattooing process, it's logical to ask which might be more painful for your pet; to experience a few moments (typically it takes about five minutes to complete an ID tattoo) of superficial pain or the more lingering, and possibly fatal pain of being lost and sitting in a cage somewhere wondering why you aren't there.