Longview Animal Care and Adoption Center installs 4 more public, free microchip readers

GREGG COUNTY, Texas (KLTV) - With the rise of microchipping pets, new technology is reuniting lost pets with their owners in East Texas.

The Longview Animal Care and Adoption Center installed a microchip scanning station in the summer in Longview at Toyota off the Loop. Now, Gladewater, White Oak and Kilgore all joined Longview to help return pets to their owners.

The adoption center added stations at Gladewater City Hall, White Oak Police Department, Kilgore Public Library and another in Longview at the Broughton Recreation Center. All these scanners are universal, meaning they can pick up any microchip.

Jenna George, the executive director for the adoption center, hopes these stations encourage pet owners to continue microchipping their pets.

“Our vision was definitely to give as many resources and options to the residents as we could and being able to spread out these microchip scanner stations was definitely part of it,” said George.

“Everyone’s finding animals every single day,” she continued. “Microchipping your pets helps make sure that they come back home to you.”

Kilgore’s station was installed about two weeks ago. Tom Sawyer with Kilgore Animal Control says he’s excited because it’ll allow people to locate animals outside of animal control’s hours.

“It not only makes our job simpler in not overloading the shelter with animals, but it keeps them stressing out these pets that just, you know, innocently escape the yard or got out of the house,” said Sawyer.

While the microchip is placed in between the animal’s shoulder blades, George says the microchip can migrate. Therefore, she recommends people scan the whole body.

After scanning the QR code on the sign and typing in the microchip number, a third party will then be able to contact the pet owner.

“Whether it’s after hours, whether it’s I found a dog on the weekend and I don’t know who to contact, it’s just the first step in trying to get these animals back home,” said George.

George says they’re finished adding scanner stations for now. They may add stations in the more rural areas of Gregg County in the future.