It is estimated that one out of three dogs will go missing in their lifetime.
With that statistic in mind, Front Street Animal Shelter is emphasizing the important role finders can play in helping animals get home while also reducing the impact on shelters.
“Our shelter is chronically overcrowded,” said Lizz Thompson, the shelter’s operations manager. “We frequently have no open kennels and must pair multiple dogs in the same kennel, which leads to high stress and potential disease transmission. Because of these realities, we recommend that finders of lost dogs explore other options before taking them to the shelter.”
Front Street urges finders of lost dogs to hold onto them for at least a couple days while implementing easy and effective steps to find the owner and prevent the need for the dog to come to the shelter.
- Get the dog scanned for a microchip at a veterinary office or shelter.
- Make a found pet posting on Nextdoor, Craigslist, PawBoost, and lost and found pet Facebook pages.
- Walk the dog around the neighborhood. Most dogs are found close to home, so asking neighbors if they know who the dog belongs to could go a long way.
- File a found pet report at 24PetWatch.
- Upload the dog’s photo to Petco Love Lost, a free facial recognition tool that will make it easy for the pet’s owner to find the dog on the platform.
- Post “Found dog” flyers with a large photo or description of the dog at the busiest intersections within a 1 mile radius of where the dog was found. Regular flyers are OK, but large colorful posters are much more noticeable.
“In surveys we’ve conducted, finders who held onto the dog found the owner about 40% of the time,” said Ryan Hinderman, customer service manager for the shelter. “If everyone who found a lost dog did this, it would not only help pet owners reunite with their pets, it would also make our shelter population more manageable.”
More information about lost and found animals can be found on the shelter’s website.