Go check that your pet's microchip is actually registered. Most people find out it is not.

The chip is not a GPS and it isn't a database on its own. It's a number. It only does anything if that number sits in a registry attached to a phone number that still reaches you. The study that gets cited on this, published in JAVMA, looked at over 7,700 stray animals entering shelters. Microchipped dogs were more than twice as likely to get home. Microchipped cats were over twenty times as likely. Enormous effect. But then it looked at the microchipped animals whose owners were never found, and the reasons are almost entirely administrative. Roughly 35 percent came down to a wrong or disconnected phone number. About 17 percent were registered in a database that wasn't the chip manufacturer's. Nearly 10 percent were never registered at all. So the failure is basically never the chip. It's that you moved, or changed carriers, or the vet implanted it and nobody ever finished the registration, or the breeder registered it in their own name and never transferred it to you. Five minute fix. Get the chip number, which is on your adoption paperwork, or your vet has it on file, and any vet or shelter will scan for it free. Look it up at petmicrochiplookup.org, the AAHA universal tool, which tells you which registry actually holds it. Log into that registry and confirm your current phone, a backup number for someone else, and your email. If it's still registered to a breeder or a rescue, transfer it now. Do it today. It costs nothing and it's the difference between getting a phone call and stapling flyers to poles.