Animal charity warns: “Keep your cats safe, get them microchipped”

19 June 2008

As part of National Microchipping Month (June), The Blue Cross is reminding cat owners to keep their pets safe by fitting them with a microchip. During the month of June, the charity’s animal adoption centre in Cambridge is offering cat microchipping for a minimum donation of £5.00. The offer is open to all cat owners, just bring your cat along between 10.00am and 2.00pm on either Sunday 29^th or Monday 30^th June and they will be identified for life.

Microchips are tiny electronic identification devices, each containing a unique serial number. Numbers are stored in a central database alongside the owner’s contact details. A scanner run over a lost cat will reveal the special number. The owner’s details are then retrieved and the cat can swiftly be returned home.

Last year, The Blue Cross reunited a cat with his owners 10 years after he went missing when the charity detected his microchip. Owners must make sure they update their contact details if they move house so that they are still reachable through the microchip’s serial number.

Alan Maskell, Blue Cross centre manager at Cambridge said: “Microchipping your cat is so important. We have many strays brought into our centre who aren’t microchipped which means our only option is to find them a new home. Often these cats have been well looked after and are clearly adored pets, so it is heartbreaking to know they may never see their original owners again.”

To take advantage of this microchipping service please bring your cat, in a suitable and secure carrier, between 10.00am and 2.00pm on either day to The Blue Cross animal adoption centre, 20 Garlic Row, Newmarket Road, Cambridge CB5 8HW. For more information please contact the centre on 01223 350153.

ENDS

Notes to Editors

Images of the microchipping process or Lynx, the cat reunited after 10 years, are available. Please contact the press office.

The Blue Cross animal adoption centre in Cambridge opened in 1935, serving approximately a 30-mile radius including all of Cambridgeshire and parts of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire. The purpose-built centre has space for 150 cats and some rabbits. Hundreds of animals are successfully rehomed every year.

To contact the centre call 01223 350153. Opening hours: Monday to Friday: 10am - 4pm. Weekends and Bank Holidays: 10am - 2pm.

The Blue Cross animal charity provides practical support, information and advice for pet and horse owners. Through its network of small animal and equine adoption centres it rehomes thousands of animals each year. Its hospitals provide veterinary care for the pets of people who cannot afford private vets' fees.  For more information, please visit www.bluecross.org.uk.

Media contact

Louise Lee, Press Officer, 020 7932 4066 or louise.lee@bluecross.org.uk