Pet-ID microchipping, which can cost $150, done by donation at Surrey vet

Pet-ID microchipping, which can cost $150, done by donation at Surrey vet

Published 2:43 pm Friday, March 20, 2026

By-donation microchipping of pets will be offered at a Surrey veterinary hospital on Friday, March 27, as part of BC SPCA efforts to reunite strays with their families.

At the Surrey centre last year, close to 85 per cent of stray cats and 40 per cent of stray dogs could not be returned to their homes, often due to a lack of permanent identification, according to Layla Gilhooly, manager of BC SPCA Surrey.

Thousands of lost and stray animals are taken to Canadian shelters annually.

“So many strays end up at the BC SPCA’s animal centres because they do not have any form of permanent identification,” Gilhooly said.

“It is nearly impossible to reunite animals with their families without it.”

On March 27, during a three-hour clinic from 9 a.m. until noon, the animal-welfare charity partners with King George Veterinary Hospital, in Newton, to offer microchip implantation and registration for pets, by donation.

Twelve appointment times are available on the online registration calendar (outlook.office.com/book/MicrochipImplantationClinic@spca.bc.ca). Visit the Facebook event for details or email email surrey@spca.bc.ca.

The veterinary hospital, at #902-7380 King George Blvd., Surrey, is owned and operated by veterinarian Geronimo Piano.

“We don’t want cost to be a reason a pet doesn’t find their way home,” Gilhooly noted. “So, we reached out to King George Veterinary Hospital and BC Pet Registry, and they generously offered their services so that we could give pet guardians microchip implantation and registration by donation.”

Gilhooly says microchipping a pet can cost close to $150.

“A tattoo (for pet indentification) is the cheaper option,” she said, “so most people would usually opt for a tattoo. But the challenge with tattoos that we frequently see in centre is that they fade, and sometimes even when they’re fresh they can be very difficult to read, to make out, which then means even if a cat or an animal has a tattoo, it can be tough for us to trace it back to the owner.

“Whereas a microchip, as long as someone keeps the information up to date, that should remain implanted in the their body. So it’s more permanent, the microchip.”

She said ideal pets for microchipping are cats, dogs and rabbits. “Other animals just are a little bit too small for a microchip, which is about the size of a grain of rice so it just gets a little bit big for some of the smaller animals.”

Meantime, BC SPCA Surrey will host an open house Sunday, April 12 from 1 to 3 p.m., at 16748 50 Ave., Surrey. People can meet adoptable animals and learn more about microchip scanning and pet first-aid.

“This is kind of the time of year, going into April, when our busiest time of the year starts, so we’re getting lots of large groups of cats coming into care,” Gilhooly said. “We’ve also got our first litters of the year, litters of kittens, so it’s starting to ramp back up again.”