This beautiful cocker spaniel, Jenquah, was reunited with this family after just a few days thanks to
1) Ryan, the Good Samaritan who rescued him and fostered him until he could be reunited with his family directly. He posted info about the dog to the Pet FBI Facebook page…
2. Teresa, a Pet FBI “Private Agent” who follows the Pet FBI Ohio Facebook page and cross-posts and cross-checks lost and found reports. It was she who contacted Ryan and urged him to give the complete information required so his post would go from the side bar to the more visible main timeline…
3. Char, our devoted Facebook administrator who spends hours daily vetting posts and seeing that all the posts on our timeline have complete, actionable information…
4. Another “Good Sam,” (whose name, appropriately, IS “Sam”!), the astute and dedicated Franklin County Animal Shelter worker who follows the Pet FBI Facebook page. So when Jenquah’s family came to the shelter to look for him he was able to tell them about the Facebook post. Result: happy ending!
Object Lesson: –If you decide to foster a stray while seeking its owner in order to spare the pet the stress and risks attendant in giving the pet over to a shelter, at least leave full information about the pet with the shelters ASAP. Most shelters have a lost and found bulletin board and, after all, the shelter is the obvious place someone who has lost a pet would check.
— When you post to a Facebook page or Craigslist or any other free-form media, including posters, be sure to give complete, actionable information: full description of pet, when lost, where lost specifically and good accurate information!
AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FROM PET FBI’s DIRECTOR:
Starting today, August 5, we are instituting a huge new time-saving feature for our database users. We are confident this enhancement will result in many more reunions. From now on, when you submit a lost or found pet report to the Pet FBI database, you will automatically receive information on any new potentially matching reports.
Here’s how it works: Suppose you submit a lost cat report. If a “found cat report” is submitted with a zip code within 100 miles of the zip you used in your report, you will be notified. New Report Alerts will be emailed daily, unless there is nothing new, and they will continue for 90 days from the day you submit your report or until you “unsubscribe”. Here’s a sample:
Found Dogs for 7/29/2015 within 100 miles of Zip Code 43002
The new reports will not be filtered by sex or color since people so often make mistakes about these characteristics. So you may get some extra information but that is better than missing that one critical report because someone thought your neutered male cat was a female. In any case, the New Report Alerts will be easy to skim and you will be saved the bother of having to do a manual search every day to see if there is anything new.
It will still be possible of course to do a manual search. If your report has not resulted in a reunion after 90 days, you can continue to look and even extend the search radius to 250 miles.
We would love to hear back from you if you have any suggestions about the New Report Alert or about anything else on Pet FBI.
Thanks to Glen, our ace volunteer database programmer who put a lot of work and thought into this!
With best wishes for a happy reunion,
Maresa, Pet FBI Director/Volunteer
Mia the cat went missing on Saturday. Her distraught Mom turned to the Pet FBI lost and found pet database at PetFBI.org and the Pet FBI Ohio Facebook page. Our devoted Facebook administrator, Char Reidinger, coached her about what to do. Most cats don’t go very far; they are just laying low. Mom was trying all the tricks when finally on Tuesday evening around 9:30 she tried the most unlikely tip. She grabbed her cell phone and sat outside talking. Mia came trotting right over like “Ho-hum…hiya, Mom…”
Chase went missing on July 15, This morning (July 24) someone dropped off him to be groomed. The alert groomer recognized him from his Pet FBI Ohio Facebook post and contacted authorities. Here is Chase reunited with this ecstatic little brother and sister,
Object Lesson: Spread the information about your lost pet everywhere you can! Facebook posts can be very effective.
Sissy had been missing for five days, Dad was pretty worried since she is seventeen years old and had never been lost before. A Good Sam came across her, checked the Pet FBI database and there she was! Much joy and relief all round!
A Good Sam found Darwin about half a mile away from home two weeks after he went missing. The Good Sam already had five cats and wisely took him to a vet to be tested for common infectious diseases. The tests came out negative but the vet did not scan the stray cat for a microchip and they did not suggest checking the Pet FBI database.
Three more weeks passed and a friend of the Good Sam suggested she check the Pet FBI database. And there he was! He is pictured here with his best friend Amelia who was thrilled to have him back. Object Lesson: Possibly the vet thought it was the client’s intention to keep the cat, but knowing it was a stray, they should have checked it for a microchip. In fact, Darwin did have a microchip and would have been home three weeks sooner – which would have spared a lot of grief and worry! We strongly recommend microchipping and ID tags BUT they are not a guarantee of recovery.If your pet goes missing, you must use other resources as well!
Pet FBI was founded in Ohio in 1998 and has a very high success rate in Ohio because it is so well known and widely used. We averaged 145 reunions a month for the last three months within a 200 mile radius of Columbus. We went national only a little over a year ago, in May of 2014, but already the Pet FBI database is the largest national lost and found pet database. Please help promote more happy reunions by referring your vet, your groomer, your local pet supply place and shelters to petfbi.org. It’s completely non-commercial and all services are free!
On May 21 Candice Lee of Columbus Ohio’s NBC4 did a segment on our organization
and how we helped a Dublin Ohio family recover their cat, Leonardo diCatrio. Leo wandered off when the husband let him out at night – contrary to habit – while his wife was in Naples Florida for a few days. We were thrilled with the story and the exposure because the more people who know and use the Pet FBI lost and found pet database (which is national) and the Pet FBI Facebook page (which is for Ohio) – the better the chances of losers and finders connecting with each other and the more happy reunions.
We were delighted when other NBC stations in Mobile, Alabama, Texas, Chicago, New York and Florida, picked up the Pet FBI segment and ran it locally. Since we only went national about a year ago, we need to achieve a critical mass of users outside of Ohio to achieve a similar high level of success. More users = more recoveries. Unfortunately, at some point one of the stations confused the facts and started referring to our founder who was interviewed as “Florida’s Ace Ventura”! (Actually we are based in Columbus, Ohio and Leo went missing in Columbus while his Mom was away in Florida!)
But there is another impression we need to correct. We have been striving since 1998 to make the Pet FBI web site the most comprehensive source of information about lost and found pets. If a search of the lost and found reports at PetFBI.org doesn’t yield a match, you must not stop there! We offer a step-by-step action plan; we inform people about how to identify important contacts like shelters and animal control, We give tips on how to lure a cat back home, or how to approach a stray dog, we provide a template for an effective flyer, and
we stress that you have to pursue all sources of information,
including other web sites, Craigslist, newspaper classifieds, and various lost and found Facebook pages, including our own.
We are fortunate in having a truly dedicated Ohio Facebook administrator who has won a following of about 19,000 friends. It is true that there is an unofficial network of Pet FBI Ohio Facebook followers who try to help posters by “connecting the dots” (looking at all the various sources of information) but we do not want to give the impression that all you have to do if you lose a pet is post on PetFBI.org or Facebook/PetFBI Ohio and then sit back and wait. Pet FBI strives to provide all the necessary tools for people who lose a pet or find a stray, but it is up to those people to make use of the tools.
We often discover that people will post a lost dog report, for example, but then they neglect to search the found dog reports. Or they stop there and don’t follow the action plan. Sometimes people send us a message “Let me know when you find my cat”! Sorry, it doesn’t work that way! Please, if you have lost or found a pet, take advantage of all the tools we offer and most important, do not give up too soon! Keep checking the database, keep going back to the shelters, renew the flyers and seek out all sources of information.
We are happy to report that in Ohio – where we are best known – the reported recovery rate for cats so far this year (May, 2015) is 54% and for dogs 33%. And it is probable that the rate is even higher because people forget to update their reports once they achieve a happy reunion. SO DO NOT GIVE UP!
Boomba from Clintonville was REUNITED thanks to our Pet FBI Ohio Facebook page!
He was initially posted on our page by his Good Sam when she found him. He was then posted a few days later when his neighbor posted his Lost Cat flyer on our page. Thankfully his Good Sam keeps a close eye on our page and immediately contacted his family to let them know he was safe and sound!
Curly is a senior fellow that was missing in Grove City. Prior to learning of Pet FBI, his also senior Dad was hopelessly wandering the neighborhood looking for Curly.
After posting Curly on our Pet FBI Ohio Facebook page, our friends Malinda & Mary alerted Curly’s family that he was located at Franklin County Dog Shelter where they were able to redeem him! YAY!
Chloe from Delaware, Ohio was REUNITED with her family thanks to her Pet FBI Ohio Facebook post!
She had been missing for 2 days when her Mom posted her on our Facebook page. In less than 24 hours she received nearly 400 shares and crossed the news feed of her Good Sam’s neighbor!
REUNITED thanks to our lovely FB friends!
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