Microchips & Tracking Your Dog In The Supply Chain?

Are You & Your Dog In A Supply Chain?

You bet.   A supply chain is the management of  how goods or services are created or manufactured, shipped to market, bought by consumers.  Why am I telling you this?

For your own good.  So listen up - 'cause there may be a quiz at then end of this post :-)    Now every manufacturer on the planet is hot on tracking the Supply Chain.  Tracking the Supply Chain can manage costs, leverage profits and gain consumer data, make money faster.  But so what - why should you care?

Let's look at dogs as consumer products - just like razors or shampoo......

Dogs As Products

Let's pretend dogs are consumer products.  The dog is the product - and you are the consumer.  You are the dog consumer.

Now emotions aside, let's look at dogs from a purely business approach. Here's a look at how you might fit into the flow of the Supply Chain, depending on what type of dog you own will depend on which type of sales chanel we are supplying:

Purebred Dogs - Sales Channel One

• Dogs are bred (raw materials)
• Puppies are whelped (manufacturing process)
• Puppies are sold (consumer marketing & sales)
• Puppies are registered (certificate of authentic goods)
• Consumer (dog owner) takes new puppy home (consumer possession)

Shelter Dogs - Sales Channel Two

• Dogs are surrendered to shelter (acquisition of goods)
• Shelter assesses adopt-ability (assessment of goods)
• Shelter provides vet care (getting goods ready for market)
• Shelter euthanizes unadopted or ill animals (product rotation, managing excess inventory)
• Shelter markets dog (adoption days, Internet)
• Shelter adopts dog to new family (sale)
• Consumer takes dog home (consumer possession)

Tracking The Inventory (Dogs) & Tracking The Consumer (You)

Now imagine a way we track the product - the dog - all the way to the consumer.  Better yet - imagine a way we can track post consumer behavior.

Imagine a way we can track......

• who bred the dog, and if they were licensed
• who bought or adopted the dog, and if the owners obtained licenses
• how  frequently and what kind of (health) veterinary care the dog received
• who delivered the veterinary (health) care
• where and when the dog was shown
• what activities the dog and their owner participates
• what products or services they buy for their dog

Who Wants The Doggie Data? Hot On The Supply Train Trail

Do you wonder who would want that doggie & owner data?  Who would those stakeholders be? And why would they want the data? Well, maybe that list might look like this:

• AKC - (Controls Purebred Sales Channel Data)
• DDAL - (Controls Shelter Sales Channel Data)
• HSUS - (Controls  Shelter Sales Channel Data)
• PIJAC - (Controls Purebred Dog & Other Animal Sales Channel & Aftermarket Goods/Services (Pet Products - Toys, Food, etc.))
• AVMA - (Controls Aftermarket Care (vet visits) & Pharmaceutical Distribution (shots, etc.))
• USDA - (Regulatory Authority Overseeing Delivery of Products - All Data Channels To Roll Up Under USDA Public/Private Database, perhaps like the NAIS model?))

Collecting all of that data would be time and labor expensive, right?  But not if  the work and the costs for collecting that data were shared.  So what if everyone who wanted to share that data would chip in? (pun intended)  and  roll it up into one big shared database.  It could happen.

How To Collect Data Without Really Trying

How could those possible stakeholders obtain and track all of that data?  And how could they do it in a cost-effective manner? And to make sure they could all share the data, mabe the data collection method would share a common technology platform (ISO Standards) , like the one that's found on Page 40 of the report to accompany HB 2744 - Farm Appropriations Bill?

Silly you.  It's called a microchip

Comments

[Walter Jeffries]

NAIS is scary stuff. Right now I don't think it covers cats and dogs but I would not be surprised if it were expanded to cover them. NAIS is just an excuse to gain more control over people and with it we will see a loss of freedoms and an increase in the cost of foods. Once they have us register our animals then they'll start taxing them and controlling it so people can not grow their own food.

Even if the stated purpose of disease tracking was really the purpose of NAISE the problem is the government is implementing NAIS to cover a lot more than the above needs. There is no need for NAIS to track food people raise for themselves, direct farm to consumer sales and pets.

The National Animal Identification System is totally unnecessary for the homestead. If you are growing food for your own consumption you already have 100% trace back. You know where your animals came from, where they went. The government does not need to be involved.

NAIS is also not needed for direct farm to consumer sales. Again there is already 100% trace back available. I breed and raise most of my own livestock which I sell directly to the consumer. I know exactly where it has been. My customer knows where they got it. The government does not need to be involved.

NAIS is not needed for pets either for the same reasons. In fact, this is the most absurd aspect of the whole thing that points out just how flimsy the government's excuse that NAIS is for tracking disease or contamination in the food chain. If NAIS were really for that purpose then they should be tracking every food, from beets to broccoli to beef. The most likely source of threat to our food chain is at the processor and distribution levels.

NAIS is to benefit government (think taxes), big businesses (eliminates small business competition) and the consumers (feels good because food supply is 'safe') who buy from the big businesses and pay taxes to the government. It is harmful to small farmers and individuals who raise their own food. The government is offering us paper work, snooping, threatening huge fines and confiscation of our property. Next they will be taxing what they require us to register. Their goal is to make everyone dependent on them.

There is another threat in all of this. The information collected under NAIS is not secure - it can be gotten by people like Pee; Ee, Tee .Ah under the Freedom Of Information Act. That is very scary. Do we want those freaks knowing where we are and exactly what we have for livestock so they can come vandalize our farms, destroy our property, burn our home and kill our family?!? No.

NAIS as written is a horrible idea and it should NOT be implemented. NAIS will not make our food supply or our nation more secure but rather just the opposite by centralizing production and control. NAIS is big government gone way, way overboard and horribly wrong. I hope that people will write their congressional representatives, local newspapers and the USDA. We must act now while we still have the right to keep livestock. Once NAIS passes it will be much harder to get rid of and it will be followed by further trashing of our rights.