WEXFORD, Allegheny County - Busta is living proof that technology is a good thing.

And although he had been a bad dog, the pug, who was missing for 24 hours, is back at home thanks to the kind of technology that was donated to five law enforcement agencies.

At the Bradford Hills Veterinary Hospital of veterinarian James Krewatch, Shelly Kearns of Gibsonia on Friday presented 40 AVID MiniTracker scanners to the police departments of Cranberry, Richland, Ohio, and McCandless townships, and the Pine-Marshall-Bradford Woods joint police force.

Forty scanners were donated because that is the combined number of police cars on patrol at any one time for all five departments.

AVID stands for American Veterinary Identification Device. It is a microchip in a smooth, strong, biocompatible mass, small enough to fit into a hypodermic needle.

The chip is implanted between the shoulder blades of dogs or cats. It has no power supply, battery or moving parts and is designed to last for 25 years.

When an AVID scanner is moved over the shoulder area, the chip receives the signal and sends the microchip number back to the scanner to be displayed.The donation was funded by Kearns' daughter, singer Christina Aguilera. The scanners cost about $400 each and can read any implanted 125 kHz microchip, the kind commonly used in the United States.It is estimated 11 million dogs and cats in this country have identification microchips buried under their skin.The donation came about because of a conversation a year ago, when Jim Kearns, Aguilera's dad, was in the veterinary hospital with his pet. The subject of pet tracking microchips came up, and how if scanners were available in police cars, lost and found pets could be returned more quickly and easily to their families, Krewatch said."Mr. Kearns said, 'My daughter might be interested."I didn't know who his daughter was," added Krewatch with a smile, although he had implanted microchips in Aguilera's three pet dogs in the past.Pets, like the wayward Busta, who ran away on Wednesday and was found on Thursday by the Pine-Marshall-Bradford Woods patrol, was scanned and housed at Krewatch's clinic overnight. The year-old pug was returned to its owner Jessie Novick, 17, on Friday, shortly after the training session on scanning was given by Mary Metzner, director Shelter Operation for AVID.With scanners in police cars, and access to the database via the telephone, reuniting lost pets with frantic families could be accomplished in a shorter time frame, said Metzner.