Last Saturday, cats and dogs received more chips than your good china. Fix Long Beach, an all-volunteer nonprofit dedicated to spay/neuter and general pet health, implanted over 70 microchips into that many animals and vaccinated more than 200 of them.

Free microchips for pets available at Fix Long Beach clinic. Masks for humans are required.

“We weren’t expecting almost 150 people and their pets to attend!” said Diana Kliche, Fix Long Beach’s board president. “I’ve had a lot of people email that they missed microchips.”

Thanks to grants from Animal Sheltering and Michelson Found Animals, the organization obtained more microchips and will hold one more free clinic before the Fourth of July to meet the needs of more pet parents. The clinic will take place Thursday, July 2, at 1749 Magnolia Ave., Long Beach, 3–4 p.m. Dogs must be on sturdy leashes and well-fitting collars or harnesses, cats must be in carriers, and humans must be in face masks. Low-cost vaccines, flea meds and nail-trimmings will be available, and you can make an appointment to get your cat or dog fixed. That’s free, too.

More information is available here. You can print out the form below, fill it out, and bring it to the clinic. No appointment is necessary.

https://www.facebook.com/FixLongBeachPets/photos/gm.568604497378766/985480285255581/?type=3&theater

Microchips are rice-size circuits containing an identification number and information such as the pet’s name, gender, distinguishing marks and human-contact information. It isn’t a tracking device but more like an ID card that supplements a collar and tag, which a pet should always wear anyway, even if they’re kept strictly indoors. If a cat or a dog runs off and winds up in the shelter or someone’s backyard, the chip can be scanned and the pet can go home. Simple, and necessary as all heck during the fireworks season, which has little to do with the actual Fourth of July commemoration. This year, there were reports of illegal fireworks set off around Mother’s Day, and it’s anyone’s guess when it will stop.

This year, the city’s Fourth of July fireworks celebration and the July 3 privately funded Big Bang on the Bay have been cancelled, but scofflaws are still setting them off illegally everywhere at all hours and startling the daylights out of human and beast. Microchips won’t stop the pyrotechnics, but they’ll definitely help ensure a safe return to a frightened, lost pet.