Have you ever lost a pet? If you have you know that it is a long drawn out process of telephone calls to the shelter, making photocopies of fliers, and distributing the fliers around town. This may be a problem for you, but think of it on a larger scale, of all of the pets that are lost. Believe it or not, there is a huge problem today with over crowded animal shelters. As a matter of fact, the United States the rate at which lost pets are returned to their owner is only 14%. This creates a huge number of animals that are left unidentified and unclaimed. Because of the mass number of animals, the shelters have had to compensate by euthanising these animals. In fact, more than 26,000 animals where euthanized in Oklahoma City alone last year, and an estimated 20 million in America. If your not careful, your pet could be one of the 26,000 next year.
             Besides the overwhelming numbers of animals in the shelters due to not spaying or neutering animals, one cause is the inefficiency of the current identification system. The most common forms of identification are tags and tattoos. These methods fail though. First of all, the tags are usually held on by a flimsy aluminum ring and are attached to collars. When the dog escapes the back yard, and is running around the neighborhood it is easy to see that the tags usually fall off or the collars break while they are going through trees or under fences. Tattoos, on the other hand, are more permanent and seem like a logical solution to the plan. Unfortunately they are as inefficient though. Unlike cattle identification where the brand must be located on the back right thigh, there is no specific location where the tattoo must be located on small animals. Plus dogs and cats are much hairier, and when dirty, it is almost impossible to see their skin much less a tattoo, if they even have one. Therefore, tattoos are hard to see, hard to read, and even harder to recognize. Using it as a w...