It’s a sign as old as canine and feline – flyers of missing pets posted around town. But is there a more effective way of getting your pet home sooner and safely?
Local shelters are touting a new solution sweeping shelters across the country, including shelters throughout the greater Houston area.
Nearly 10 million pets go missing each year. Many of these dogs and cats end up in crowded shelters, especially during summer months – and right now, our area shelters are over-capacity.
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For additional perspective, that means that one in three household pets will become lost at some point during their life, according to Petco Love.
Its tool, PetCoLOVELOST.org is a free national lost-and-found database that uses patented image-recognition technology to reunite lost pets with their owners.
Aaron Johnson, Montgomery County Animal Services Director explained, “The main goal of it is just to be able to reunite pets, with their owners and their families and get them back home as quickly as possible. And it does it by an image recognition technology. Kind of similar to what people would call a facial recognition technology.”
Johnson recommends pet owners make a profile now. “You can load your pets ahead of time. Just as we try to get people to plan for other things (like) disasters, we want people to be ready with their pets.”
The Technology
“Kind of similar to what people would call a facial recognition technology. The goal is to, you know, reunite them outside of the shelter, get them back to their families, or if they are in the shelter, then hopefully we can find that match quicker and they can get out of the shelter faster and therefore creating more space in their shelters. Even the animal shelters are loading their pets so that we can the obviously, the more data we have, then the more chances that we’re going to find that match.”
Johnson said it’s about meeting people where they are in the moment – during after-hours and on holidays. The technology integrates with social media platforms like Facebook and Nextdoor and apps like Ring.
Courtney Gawel, Montgomery County Animal Services Live Release Manager said, “It searches all of the databases, the local databases of lost pets in our area and uses their facial recognition software to find matches. And it sends the matches directly to your email that you provided and then gives you the information of where those specific pets are located.”
Gawel called this a first line of defense tool. This way if ever you have to report your pet missing or you find a pet, it’s as easy as a few clicks alleviating some of the stress during chaotic moments.
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Creating a profile for your pet on PetCoLOVELOST.org is recommended, but this is in addition to getting your pet fixed and microchipped. The combination of all three will really make a difference when it comes to keeping our pets safe and of course help combat the crisis of overcrowding in our shelters.
BARC, Montgomery County Animal Services, Baytown, Fort Bend, and Rosenberg are among the shelters utilizing the technology.
According to PetCo Love Foundation, the system it uses protects personal private information and it does not share information with other entities.
