Losing your beloved pet dog can be a traumatic experience. Unfortunately, more than ten million pets go missing across the USA every year. One in three pets will go missing at some point in their lives. Despite it being such a common event, many people are still unsure of what to do when their dog or cat goes missing.
Reuniting with your lost pet can be challenging, it’s a big world out there after all. Depending on where you live, you may find it easier or harder than others. For a city as large as New York, finding your dog may seem difficult. We’ve put together this guide to help you locate lost dogs in New York.
Follow these steps to stand the best chance of recovering your dog:
Contact Local Animal Shelters
If a passer-by finds your dog, they will most likely take it to a nearby animal shelter. There are loads of different animal shelters in New York that look after lost or abandoned pets. You can file a lost pet report with an animal shelter that will mean if they find a dog matching the description of yours, they’ll contact you.
Try to get in touch with every animal shelter within a 20-mile radius of where you last saw your dog. Make sure to provide an accurate description of your dog and any recent photos that you might have. Animal shelters take in millions of pets across America each year, so this is probably your best chance of finding your dog.
Search the Area
Walk or drive through the area where you lost your dog as much as possible. Speak to neighbors, small business owners, and other people you come across. Ask them if they’ve seen your dog and provide them with a photo if you have it.
You may also want to produce flyers and notices, giving a description of your dog and asking for information. Be sure to provide your contact details so people can get in touch with you. When you include your dog’s description on the flyer, you should leave out one characteristic. This way, when someone gets in touch to say you’ve found your dog, you can ask them to describe it to prove it’s your dog.
Try Using the Internet and Social Media
Posting a message online can be a quick way to reach thousands of people and hopefully locate your missing dog. Posting on sites like Lost Pets USA and Lost Dogs of America will make sure people are keeping a lookout for your dog.
Social media sites like Facebook and others are also useful tools for posting messages within a community. Many people are able to locate their missing pets each day, thanks for posting a notice on social media. As with producing flyers, leave off one identifying characteristic from your description. This way, you can be sure that if someone messages you, you’ll be able to double-check that it’s definitely your dog. Be wary of people that may try to trick you, especially if you’ve offered a reward. Never send anyone money online, even if they promise that they’ll return your pet if you pay them.
Use a Lost Pet App
Social media isn’t the only way to use technology to recover your dog. These days, there are plenty of new ways to use your smartphone to make your life easier. There are now smartphone apps that you can download that will help you locate your missing dog.
These apps often use facial recognition technology and collaborate with local animal shelters. They can instantly search through pictures of lost dogs and find yours. Others can make use of GPS technology, using a specially designed collar that will automatically reveal your dog’s location on a map.
These apps can have an accuracy rating of more than 99% and have helped hundreds of owners reunite with their dogs and other pets.
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