CHAPTER 17 Linda K. Lord Veterinary Administration, The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine, Columbus, USA All over the world, it is not uncommon to turn on the news, open a newspaper, or go to a popular Internet news site and find a story about the miraculous reunification of Fido with his owner. Dogs and cats have been reported to travel thousands of miles and be recovered after months and even years of searching. More commonly, every day pets are reunited with their owners simply by a call from a neighbor or the pet returning home on its own. Whether the process of reunification is short or long, easy or complex, society views the preservation of this human–animal bond as important. Despite this importance, little work has been done to characterize what occurs when a pet becomes lost, whether there is a process of searching for a lost pet, the success in finding them, or the impact on the shelters and people that care for them. Recently, some epidemiological data have started to emerge to help give us some understanding of the dynamics of lost pets and their potential recovery. Nationally, approximately 7.6 million animals enter shelters each year (ASPCA 2014) with approximately twice as many animals entering as strays versus owner surrender. Of those animals, it is estimated that only 30% of dogs and 2–5% of cats are reunited with their owners (Humane Society of the United States 2013). Although issues exist with how shelters may calculate their return to owner (RTO) numbers, clearly a disconnect exists between the population of animals entering a shelter as strays and the owners who may be searching to find their lost pets. Even though it is commonly accepted among shelters that a portion of the animals in their care may be abandoned animals, there is an obvious percentage that appear well cared for and almost certainly have an owner frantically hoping to recover their faithful companion. In addition, some percentages of pets that are lost each year never enter animal shelters and may or may not be recovered by their owners. In the only study (Weiss et al. 2012) to characterize the percentage of pets lost and then reunited at a national level, the random-digit dial survey found that 14% of dogs and 15% of cats had been lost by their owners at least once in the last 5 years. Of those lost pets, 93% of dogs and 75% of cats were reunited with their owners. The study goes further to extrapolate this to the number of pets lost nationally to 10,181,460 dogs and 12,960,000 cats over 5 years with 766,360 dogs and 3,240,000 cats never recovered by their owners. The time and money spent by owners searching for these lost pets including time away from work, the emotional toll on the owners, and the costs to shelters who handle at least a portion of these pets show the importance of keeping pets in their homes and improving the speed and efficiency by which owners are able to find their pets. One piece of the complexity of pet reunification lies in the variability of how owners respond to their pets being lost. For some owners, a dog or cat slipping out of the house or fence even for a few minutes triggers an immediate response to start searching. For others, a pet may be missing for days to even weeks before an owner is concerned enough to start their search, if at all. Multiple factors affect the variability in this process including the strength of the human–animal bond, the length of time of ownership, type of area where the owner lives (rural owners may consider a free-roaming pet to be normal compared with urban/suburban owners), the inclination for the pet to stray from its home, and the resources that an owner has to look for a lost pet. For some owners, a missing pet triggers them to undertake an immediate, full-blown search including searching the neighborhood, hanging posters, calling/visiting the shelter, running an ad in the paper, and searching lost pet sites online. For others, job and parenting demands, the location and hours of the shelter, lack of knowledge of how to search, and the lack of disposable income may mean the only search method used is a drive through the neighborhood. One of the critical pieces in educating owners about how to search for lost pets is in understanding the differences between dog and cat behavior when lost and factors believed to be associated with differences in their behavior. Dogs can travel large distances and for certain breeds of dogs such as Huskies, the tendency to travel distances may be greater. Despite this ability to travel distances, often dogs are found relatively close to home. In one study on a community in Montgomery County, Ohio, 71% of dogs were found less than a mile from home with only 7% being found greater than 5 miles away (Lord et al. 2007a). In a national study on lost pets (Weiss et al. 2012), 49% of dogs were recovered by searching the neighborhood and an additional 20% returned home on their own supporting the notion that dogs most often are found reasonably close to home. Cats present additional challenges because of their tendency and ability to hide. Indoor cats that escape the home, in particular, will often hide and can be very close to home in the owner’s or nearby neighbor’s garage or shed. As an example, in one case, a colleague of the author did not extensively search her neighborhood until 3 days after her cat was missing. After she began calling for her cat in each of her immediate neighbor’s yards, she found her cat lodged underneath her neighbor’s deck unable to escape. A cat can also after a period of time take up at a neighbor’s house who may then start to feed it with the result of its entering the realm of a free-roaming cat and subsequently never being found by its owner. Cats that are allowed to go outside may tend to roam farther than indoor-only cats when lost although no data exist to verify this. Thus, it is particularly important to educate owners about the behavior of their cats to help them tailor their search process. Although limited data are in the literature, there have been some descriptions about the search processes used by owners to find their lost pets. With all of these methods, there may be differences between how owners search for dogs versus cats, all of which may contribute to the variation in success rates. In two studies on lost dogs and cats (Lord et al. 2007a, b), owners on average contacted animal shelters within a day of their dog being lost compared with 3 days for cats. In addition, for owners who visited animal shelters more than once, the median time between visits was 3 days for dogs compared with 8 days for cats. This can be particularly important related to cats because holding periods at most shelters for cats could potentially lead to adoption or euthanasia either before an owner ever makes contact or in the time in between visits. There are many excellent resources available to shelters to help guide owners as to the most effective methods for searching for a lost pet. One of the most well-known and comprehensive sites is the Missing Pet Partnership (available at http://www.missingpetpartnership.org). The basic tenets for a comprehensive search process include searching the neighborhood, making regular and frequent contact with area shelters, distributing flyers, hanging posters, checking websites, and posting on lost pet websites. The site also has a comprehensive listing of useful lost pet links that can be shared with owners. Often shelters can help guide owners who call or visit by providing them with resources on how to search for their lost pet. Having a postcard with tips and local resources can be very helpful to post on your website and to pass out to owners. In addition, newer technologies exist and services are available to assist in the search process. Missing Pet Partnership trains pet detectives to help in searches, and companies such as FindToto.com will place thousands of phone calls very quickly to an owner’s neighbors to alert them to the lost pet. It is important to encourage owners to act quickly and have a comprehensive strategy. It is widely held that visual identification through the use of a pet identification tag is critical in helping to reunite pets with the owners quickly and efficiently. The proper type of tag can assist the finder of a lost pet in contacting the owner without ever having to involve an animal shelter. Animals may wear microchip ID tags, rabies tags, license tags where laws require licensing, and personal identification tags. In addition, owner information such as a phone number may be engraved on a collar, particularly with larger dogs where the collar size allows for this type of information. As basic as the use of a tag may appear, several factors influence whether or not it is a major factor in reuniting pets with the owners including owner attitudes toward tagging in general, and the ability of the animal to successfully wear a collar and tag, and the owner’s willingness to actually have their pet wear an identification tag. It is difficult to determine the number of pets that are reunited each year due to the presence of a tag because most of these types of events would not be reported anywhere such as with an animal control agency. In one national study, 15% of dogs were found by their tag or a microchip and only 2% of cats (Weiss et al. 2012). This was similar to a study in Oklahoma City where 11.9% of dogs and 3% of cats had been lost and subsequently returned to the owner by a tag (Slater et al. 2012). In two other studies of owners searching for their lost pets at a local animal shelter in Montgomery County, Ohio, 26.5% of dogs and 1% of cats found in the study were due to the presence of a tag (Lord et al. 2007a, b). In the latter study, the population only included pets where the owner had searched through an animal shelter, which likely excluded some percentage that found their pet by another method, including tagging, before ever contacting an animal shelter. There is evidence to support the perception that tagging is important to both the general public and pet owners and that despite the perceived importance, the actual practice of having a pet wear a tag is significantly lower. In one random-digit dial telephone survey of 703 Ohioans, 76% believed owners should be required to have some form of identification for their cats (tag or microchip) but only 54.9% of cat owners held the same belief (Lord 2008). This discrepancy may be tied to the fact that cat owners in general are less supportive of legal requirements related to cats than the public as a whole (Lord 2008). In the same study, of the 217 cat owners, only 38 (17.5%) had a collar and tag on their cat. In a separate study of 291 pet owners in the Oklahoma City area, 64.7% of 65 cat owners and 83.9% of 226 dog owners believed it was very or extremely important for their pet to be wearing visual identification at all times (Slater et al. 2012). Yet among this same group, 84.6% of cats and 62.4% of dogs were not wearing a tag at the time of the study. In a national random-digit dial survey of pet owners, 90 (89%) dogs and 31 (56%) cats were wearing some type of tag or had a microchip the last time they were lost (Weiss et al. 2012). These numbers may be higher because if the animals were lost previously, owners would be more likely to identify their pets. A person who sees a wandering dog or cat may take a variety of actions depending on their perceptions of the animal, the animal’s behavior; whether or not the animal is wearing a collar and/or tag, and the importance they place on finding the owner. Their actions may range from ignoring the animal, providing a meal for the animal, regularly feeding, and/or actively attempting to find the owner. Although there is little to no research on the perceptions of people that see lost pets, it is not a stretch to believe that tagging can influence their actions to help these pets. Particularly with cats where being outside may be part of the cat’s normal routine and the presence of free-roaming cats may be common, the presence of a collar and tag can emphasize to a finder the cat is “lost not stray,” and the person may be more inclined to approach the cat, look at the tag, and hopefully contact the owner. There are many barriers in the beliefs of owners that influence whether or not they actually have visual identification for their pet, even if they believe it is important. This is particularly true in cats, where the actual act of wearing a collar may be viewed negatively. There have been several studies that have included questions as to why they do not have their pet wearing an ID tag. In four different studies, the most common reason owners reported their cats did not wear a collar or tag was that the cats were indoor-only, with the percentage of owners reporting this reason ranging from 51% to 89% (Lord 2008; Lord et al. 2008a, 2010; Slater et al
Lost and found
Introduction
Methods owners use to search for lost pets
Behavior of lost pets
Description of various methods owners use to search for lost pets
Tagging
Success of tags in reunification
Owner perceptions about tagging and actual tagging of pets
Perceptions of lost pets from the finder’s point of view
Barriers for the use of a collar and tag among owners
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