Setting up for microchipping success: stress-free vet visits for cats and kittens

There are currently an estimated 2.6 million cats without a microchip in the UK¹. The government announced changes in legislation, making the microchipping of cats compulsory in England. It is likely you will see an influx to your practice in May, as the deadline looms for June 2024. The change in legislation follows the compulsory microchipping of horses and dogs over the last few years and will also include compulsory storage of owner details on a government approved database.

What does this mean for your cat owner clients?

Microchipping adds further assurance to collars and tags, to ensure pet owners can be reunited with their cat. After 10th June 2024, it will be mandatory for all cats over 20 weeks old to be microchipped. If owners fail to have their cat chipped it can result in a £500 fine. The new cat microchipping law has largely been met with a positive response by both pet owners and professional veterinary organisations. With vets frequently being pet owners themselves, they are often acutely aware of the characteristics of cat curiosity and how there’s nothing worse than sitting and waiting for your pet to come home.

What does this mean for your practice?

Are you part of a cat-friendly clinic? Having a separate area set up for pet owners and their cats can help to reduce the stress of cats going to the vet. If you don’t, it can be particularly useful to have a temporary set up in the waiting area, especially if there is going to be a higher percentage of cat visitors over the next few months. The microchipping legislation also presents the opportunity to perform a physical exam and assess current prescription needs; are you linking your appointments for microchipping with vaccinations, parasite prevention, or scheduling annual health checks and neutering? Are you aligning the increase in cat visits with the opportunity to discuss health care plans?

We spoke with Feline Specialist Sarah Caney and Dr Carolyn Kyte, MRCVS, UK Technical Consultant at Elanco, to get their tips and myth-busting tricks when it comes to setting kittens up for success in those initial appointments. Sarah notes small kittens can be wriggly and tricky to restrain, but also explains “we can exploit that curiosity, that developmental stage that these young individuals are at, to make sure that we expose them to as many types of formulations of not only food, but also treats, so that when it comes to us wanting to perhaps later intermingle some of these things with medications - it helps set us up for success”.  

Fewer kittens are currently vaccinated than puppies.² Therefore, kittens may potentially present for the first time at a practice for microchipping. It is worth considering the order of discussions and optimising medications at the appointment itself. For example, if you are planning to prescribe parasite prevention at the same time as microchipping, then chewable treatments could be a great choice for pet owners to avoid topical applications where the microchip may be implanted. Equally, for cats less familiar with vet practices, or coming to the practice for the first time, they can be sent home with parasiticides for administration at home. There are many options available with spot-ons, collars and chewable treatments, which can be given easily with food or alongside tasty treats.

What does this mean for cats?

But why do cats do what they do? And why can a visit to the vet or treatment time cause them stress? Opportunities should be found for socialisation and habituation, especially during the “sensitive” period that kittens undergo between 2 and 8 weeks. Even if the kitten doesn’t go to a new home until after this, there are still ongoing opportunities to build their character and adaptability, for example positive associations with people and other animals should be built during a socialisation period from when kittens are 8-9 weeks old. Reinforcing experiences for socialisation should continue for their first year of life, to help cement behaviours and preferences. New experiences should ideally be encouraged alongside something positive, while the kitten is calm and relaxed. Kittens in particular benefit from early exposure and new experiences – visits to the vet for routine care and parasiticide prescription can be a part of this. 

For older animals, habituation is about learning to be comfortable and relaxed with their environment, so every vet visit provides the opportunity to reinforce a positive association. Carolyn Kyte explains: “We need to make giving a cat medication a positive experience whenever possible. A fantastic outcome is when we can turn it into a bonding experience between cat and owner - that is beneficial for everyone involved.” 

How can vets set up cat owners for success?

Setting up stress-free consults for both microchipping and ongoing treatment is important for new cat visits. “We are more and more seeing the impact of stress in cats” says Sarah Caney. “If owners witness their cats being stressed, it has a really significant negative impact on them”. However, we are seeing more cat-friendly treatment formulations, and innovations in microchipping that allow stress to be minimised in practice.

Stress free-microchipping tips:

Stress-free treatment tips:

We asked Carolyn Kyte about the latest feline innovations, and she said: “We now have some very cat friendly formulations of medication. For example, Credelio Cat has been designed especially for cats to ease treatment of ticks and fleas. The tablets are tiny and tasty making them easy to give. If we can enable owners to medicate their cats at home with preventative treatments like Credelio Cat, then we are setting them up for success when they need to treat their cats during an illness or with longer term medication.”