When their 12 year-old mare, Idaho, was stolen in September 1997, Debi and Harold Metcalfe devoted a year to finding and bringing her home. What the Shelby, NC couple learned from the experience led to creating Stolen Horse International, aka NetPosse.com, now among the best resources in North America for finding missing horses and an advocate in addressing horse theft and identification.
In August 2016, at the well-loved age of 31, Idaho was led gently over the rainbow bridge in the pasture she had known as her home and haven ever since her rescue, with Debi and the people who loved her by her side. In memory of Idaho, and every horse that deserves to be found, we share what we know about some of today's options in identification, particularly microchipping, to help you decide what might one day help (or not help) bring your horse home, too.
Last June the American Horse Council hosted a National Issues Forum that included Matt Iuliano, Executive Vice President and Executive Director of The Jockey Club, Mary Babick, Vice President of the US Hunter Jumper Association, and Summer Stoffel, of the USEF Horse Recording & ID Task Force Committee, who spoke on a panel regarding the benefits of microchipping.
“With microchipping, you don't worry about spelling the name correctly or what year the horse was born,” said Iuliano. “This would be more efficient than dragging a clipboard around saying, ‘Who is that again?' and being told, ‘That's the horse we call Skippy.’ Hospitals leverage this technology. You get a band and your history is attached.” He added how pedigree, performance, and breeding histories could be attached to a microchip number, creating greater ease of information transfer after sales.
“Consumer confidence was low,” added Babick. “It is too easy to fudge a horse’s age and/or reputation, sometimes innocently and other times with intention to conceal. Microchipping will begin allowing owners and buyers to be sure of a horse’s identity.”
“The future of any industry is data,” concluded Stoffel. “Microchipping has been used in Europe since 2006 to monitor horse welfare, protect against theft, prevent fraud, track competition eligibility, and trace disease outbreak. It is a safe, reliable, less painful way to provide permanent, unchangeable positive identification.”
Microchipping sounds convenient. For horse people. But what about for horses?
That's where things get problematic. Once implanted, chips have been known to move around like a bad botox facial. Those inserted with anti-migrational sheaths have been linked to higher incidences of cancer (at the sheath site) and injection into the body of a permanent foreign substance (let's not forget Iuliano saying people get a band whereas horses get an implant) can invite more than physiological concerns, as research is showing microchips can also be infected with computer viruses, so that when an animal is next scanned, it erases a veterinarian's database.
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That's right. Microchips are in a whole new realm of threat. Research in 2006 in The Netherlands and in 2009, in the UK, demonstrated hackers can cause valid RFID tags to “behave in unexpected and generally malicious ways.”
“The virus,” said Dr. Mark N. Gasson of the University of Reading, “is copied into a new profile field for all tags, so any tag subsequently using the system will likely be overwritten and infected.” Researchers at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam noted, “Unlike a biological virus, which jumps from animal to animal, an RFID virus spread this way jumps from animal to database to animal.”
Not to mention “intentional incompatibility,” the scanner equivalent of Mac vs PC because not every scanner reads every microchip. Which has led to heartbreaking results when identifiable animals have been euthanized because a shelter or rescue's scanner was not compatible with the microchip that had been used -- and trusted.
Even the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cited nearly a dozen potential health risks associated with microchip implants: Adverse tissue reaction; migration of implanted transponder; compromised information security; failure of implanted transponder; failure of inserter; failure of electronic scanner; electromagnetic interference; electrical hazards; magnetic resonance imaging incompatibility; and needle stick.
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Specific concerns for horses have been published as recently as March 2012 in Pferd+Sport, when Ernst-Wilhelm Rabius, State Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, presented a study to the Holsteiner Verband by Swiss professor of dermatology Dr. Volker Steinkraus regarding microchip implantation. After examining skin particles of horses, Dr. Steinkraus said, “Chipping perforates the skin. Infections or encapsulations can develop. Researched tissue samples showed distinct muscle changes.”
The words “distinct muscle changes” carry especial weight. For equines, the World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA) outlines two “recognized implantation sites currently in use.” One implants the microchip within the middle third of the nuchal ligament or halfway point between the ears and withers. (The recommended implantation site in all countries except Australia). Or implanting the microchip in the musculature on the left side of the neck or anterior injection triangle. Clipping hair, local anesthetic and aseptic technique are required. (Recommended implantation in Australia).
The nuchal ligament becomes the supraspinous ligament that continues down a horse's back to its sacrum and its job is to carry and maintain a horse's head and neck position and support its back. It's probably the last place you'd want your horse feeling pain or discomfort if a chip is placed badly, has moved, or has begun to develop into an abscess or tumor.
Chips can also stop working, as was the case with makers Virbac BackHome, which did a recall in 2012 after admitting it could not identify animals implanted with its own chips. Research has also shown chips failing because of leakage from its glass capsules resulting in fluid buildup around tissue at the chip site.
“Microchip scanning devices, including 'universal scanners,' can fail to identify a correct number (and) fail to locate a microchip that has been implanted. One of several reasons why a scanner may not read a chip is because of competing technologies. Selling chips and scanners not compatible with competing brands indicates companies more interested in protecting patents and market share than providing scanners that can locate and accurately read all implants,” noted an April 13, 2016 entry by animal health advocacy site, Noble-Leon.com.
Going back to the Mac vs PC analogy, if technology is always evolving should we, as Jim Gowan of the Equine Species Working Group (ESWG) asks, invest in a system that could become obsolete? “How long will microchips be the system of choice? Maybe we don't want to be locked into chips in all our horses. If something better and more feasible comes along, then we'd have to switch systems and that could be very costly.”
Joyce Harman, DVM, MRCVS of Harmany Equine Clinic, Ltd. lends a holistic perspective to choosing a chip. “Microchipping has a bit more possibility of harm, since it gives off an energy. In a few cases, homeopathic remedies and other energetic treatments might not work as well. But the issue of benefit vs risk, the chip or the brand, comes down to definitive identification.”
One alternative is freeze branding, which Dr. Harman advises, “Does create damage to skin though not as much as hot branding. It's not as painful and I have seen plenty of horses with little outward effect. I think physical issues vary from horse to horse, depending on the skill of the person doing the procedure and the energy of the horse.”
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“Branding is more gentle than implanting a chip,” reiterated Dr. Schatzmann as a “ justifiable alternative.”
“The first line of defense to keep your horses safe is knowing your neighbor,” Metcalfe says. “Horse theft is all too common and recovery of horses can be difficult if they have been moved to other states by the time a theft is discovered.” One case, which included forged breeding and registration papers on two American Quarter Horse mares, included the owner contacting AQHA in hopes of having the association cancel the papers or take action to help locate and recover the stolen mares. “However, this was not the case. The AQHA said it was a 'civil issue' and provided no help in retrieving stolen horses, even when provided with police reports.”
“Very few organized 'farm watches' exist in the U.S.,” she said, much less the kind of 'neighborhood watch' groups that are part of local law enforcement awareness and community groups. “All organizations recommend easy identification. Microchipping and branding keep permanent identification on horses. Engraving or branding metal and leather tack is recommended and keep your property posted with signs that livestock and property have permanent identification, such as W.H.O.A. Security Signs. Deter thieves from entering with lights, cameras, security systems, locals, and loud 'livestock guardians' like dogs, geese and donkeys. If you see something amiss, pick up the phone. Most owners would rather get a false alarm call over returning home to find beloved horses gone.”
“If you think horse theft can't happen to you,” Metcalfe wrote in her May 2016 NetPosse.com column, “Remember this quote from Captain EJ Smith (of the RMS Titanic, who spoke to the press just prior to embarking on its ill-fated journey): 'I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel.”