Care For Chihuahuas

Ensuring your Chihuahua is properly identified is very important. It ensures that in the event that somehow your Chihuahua is lost, there is some way to identify your pet to strangers to help ensure that the dog is returned to correct owner. There are several ways to ensure that your dog is properly identified.

• First of all, id tags. These are little tags that are attached to the Chihuahua’s collar. They are easy to read for anyone that finds your Chihuahua and usually have a phone number on them to allow the person that finds the Chihuahua to contact the owner. The only thing you need to be mindful of is that you have a small dog so you get a small id tag. Larger tags can get snagged on something and cause injury to your small canine companion. Like everything else, ensuring the proper size will have a direct correlation to the overall safety of your Chihuahua.
• Tattoos of your social security number, phone number or other means of contact are another option but I’d strongly advise against them. There are pain free methods of identifying your dog and you should try to make those work rather than do something that permanently affects your Chihuahua’s appearance.
• Microchips: One of the best methods of identifying your dog. Microchips are placed under the skin just above the shoulder of your dog. They are injected very precisely and with such ease that they will be a very minor affect on your dog’s comfort. They are only the size of about a half grain of rice and can be tracked by any vet using a special reader. These are better than tags because they can’t be removed accidentally where as a collar can be pulled off or lost.

I would actually recommend using both the tag and microchip. This helps by allowing regular people to identify your dog as well as having the ability for a vet to track them in case the collar is lost. Remember, if you move or change your phone number to always update your dog’s tag or chip.