“DUDE! Hey, Cat, I’m talkin’ to ya. I got news!”

Stupid Cat. You’ll pay attention when I poke my nose in your butt.

Barty glowered at Cat, aka Blackwatch, and squinched his eyelids to only the barest slit necessary for vision. Blackwatch had a nasty habit of aiming at Barty’s large, round eyeballs and even though Cat kept his claws sheathed, a smack in the eye . . . well, like Barty kept hearing The Mom-Person tell Jake, “it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.” Barty liked fun and games and wanted to make sure things stayed that way — or that at least it wasn’t one of his eyes She was referring to.
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One of the great debates among pet owners is identification of pets: microchip vs. tattoo, especially on dogs.

Tattoos have many adherents, and they make a good case for their side of the issue, one of the more compelling arguments being that it is prohibited for any facility using animals in research to have an animal with an ID tattoo. It’s a good reason, even though it isn’t true. It is a popularly disseminated belief that any tattooed animal is against the law for a research facility to have on premises, but that is manifestly untrue, as tattoos are one way research labs keep tabs on the animals they use. At one time, ear tattoos were fairly prevalent, but people (and I use that term loosely) who stole animals to sell to research labs would cut off ears to remove the tell-tale ID tattoo. Once this practice came to light, the preferred placement of the identifying mark moved to the inner thigh or even the belly. However, since thieves are often ignorant of the actual law and believe the prohibition to be true, a visible ID tattoo makes your pet a much less desirable target.
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