An engraved metal tag attached to your dog’s collar is the best dog I.D. tag you can have. You can all me old-fashioned. I do believe microchipping is helpful, particularly in cases of theft. But I’m not confident that a QR tag with help with getting a lost dog home. Let me give you a couple of scenarios to prove my point:

Scenario 1: Lost at Home

You open the door to get a package or want to check out something you heard outside. You momentarily forget that your dog is behind you. When you open the door, zooms by you before you can say the word “stay.” Panic now ensues.

You live in a neighborhood where you don’t know your immediate neighbors. You have no idea what direction your dog went in and you go looking for him, but no one has seen him. An hour or two passes, and now you’re frantic.

If he is microchipped, he is not immediately identifiable, even with a QR code tag. He will have to be captured by someone who can scan the code or read the chip. It could take a day or two before you hear from someone. And if you live in a more rural area, it may take longer. Worse case scenario? Your dog is viewed as a stray (if he has no tag), and his finder decides to keep him! Trust me, it happens. In this case, an engraved tag with phone numbers would have been the best dog I.D. tag.

Scenario 2: Far from Home

So you think, OK, wherever he is, he’s got his QR tag, so someone will get back to you soon. You stare at your smartphone waiting for that call that tells you he’s been found safe. But Teddy is actually far from home with a very sweet old man that doesn’t own a smartphone.

The old man is befuddled by the strange tag Teddy is wearing. He decides he’ll just keep Teddy until he goes to town next Wednesday. Then he’ll drop her off at the local County Sheriffs office and they will get her back home. In the meanwhile, she’ll make some nice company and he’s got plenty of human food to feed her until then. Little does he know that Teddy is on medication. While you loved the QR tag for the ability to list his medical needs, it’s little help to Teddy now.

When your dog wears a Dog I.D. tag that lists contact and medical info, he’ll get home quicker. Not everyone has a smartphone and not everyone knows what a microchip is (or cares, for that matter).

Err on the safe side by using the best Dog I.D. Tag like the ones sold by the Artful Canine. Depending on the size of the tag, you can fit 3 to 5 lines of text. We recommend a cell phone number and a home phone number at minimum. If your dog has medical needs, the tag is a great way of alerting someone of his condition.

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