You have probably seen a number of MANA bulletins, postings on the Medlock Park Neighbors page on Facebook and Yahoo group, flyers nailed up around the neighborhood, and postings on the MANA website about lost dogs and cats. Pet owners are understandably worried and anxious to find their four legged family members. Fortunately, many of these pets have been reunited with their very happy owners.
One such recent happening involved Harley—a miniature greyhound—who was lost in our neighborhood the night of one of our particularly bad storms. Harley’s owner Stacy shared some information on what she did to find Harley—information others may find helpful if they are faced with this awful situation:
- She and a friend put up flyers all around the neighborhood with pictures of Harley and phone numbers people could call if he was spotted. So—be sure you have some recent pictures of your pet.
- You might want to also include email addresses.
- Also, she used the services of a lost pet tracker. The tracker's name is Claudia Clifton and her phone number is (770) 460-7910. In this case, Harley was found by a neighbor on Sunnybrook who recognized Harley from the flyers. However, Stacy said the tracker was able to give her a great deal of help, for example, identifying ways to notify neighborhood web and Facebook pages, shelters and veterinary clinics.
- There are other services which can help locate lost pets. One is www.amberpetalert.com.
- Have your pet microchipped so that if they are found, a vet clinic or shelter may be able to scan the chip and find you. Make sure your address and phone numbers are up to date with the service that monitors the chip. For example, my dogs’ chips are registered with the AKC Companion Animal Recovery program and they have information on how to locate me.
- Keep a collar with rabies and ID tags on your pets. Make sure info on ID tag is up to date and the rabies tag is current. If someone finds your pet, they can call animal control in that county, give them the tag number and animal control can trace that tag number to you.
- Don’t let your pets roam without supervision. In addition to the dangers of our streets, cats are particularly vulnerable to predators such as coyotes. Unsupervised cats also inflict great damage to birds and other wildlife populations.
Hopefully, you will not have to deal with an agonizing lost pet situation but in case you are, I hope the information above will be helpful.
