Hey, fellow pet lovers!
Today’s blog post is all about Lost Pet Prevention Month which is an annual event taking place every July, it was first created back in 2014 by PetHub an American company dedicated to reuniting lost pets with their owners. In today’s short and simple post I’m going to talk a little more about PetHub and why they created Lost Pet Prevention Month.
Let’s jump straight into today’s post!
Lost Pet Prevention Month 2019
It’s every pet owners worst nightmare, realising that their four-legged friend is nowhere to be found. Thankfully, my partner and I have never had to go through a sleepless night of worry, but many people, unfortunately, have. Lost Pet Prevention Month was created by PetHub back in 2014 with the hopes that they can help pet parents decrease the chances of losing their beloved pets. Especially in July since Independence Day is the 4th and is filled with celebrations and plenty of fireworks that can scare our pets silly.
Who are PetHub?
PetHub is an American company founded in the early months of 2010 by a pet parent, former Microsoft employee and a serial entrepreneur named Tom Arnold. Tom had a dream to help reunite lost pets and their owners as quickly as possible and was very concerned with the current return to owner (RTO) statistics in America, so decided it was time to do something about it. He had been brainstorming PetHub since 2007 but finally left Microsoft to pursue his goal of helping decrease the number of lost pets across American in 2010. He started PetHub in Seattle and worked alongside a small yet dedicated team of University interns. Local technology experts whos focus was to get the first version of the PetHub website working, so they could receive feedback from local pet parents.
Thankfully, by May 2010, they had done exactly that and had created the alpha version of their site and started to receive feedback from their pet parents on how they could improve. Tom decided to start researching other potential technologies that the company could implement with the hopes of increasing their return to owner statistics as much as possible; he stumbled across the QR code. Tom realised that it would be an excellent idea to create a physical pet ID tag that would be linked to the pets PetHub online profile, which meant once found the tag could be scanned. The owner or anyone who was linked to that pet’s account would be informed about their pet’s whereabouts by sending the GPS location of their four-legged friend straight to their phone.
PetHub added the technology to their already great service and patented it in August 2010. That same year the company launched their first public website and business boomed after CNET wrote their first article spreading the word amongst pet parents nationwide. The article had such an impact that they gained 3000 new users in 3 days, that’s insane!! Then in 2012, the company added their 24/7 found pet helpline where anyone who found a pet or lost a pet could call up free of charge. This meant they now had three different ways to help reunite lost pets with their owners which have resulted in a lot of happy customers and a customer satisfaction rate of 96% since 2013.
As the years have gone on the company has added many additions to their service, including their premium subscription. After learning about PetHub, I think it sounds like a fantastic company with a team of passionate pet lovers who are all dedicated to reuniting lost pets with their owners. 97% of pets lost whos owners use the PetHub service are reunited within 24 hours of going lost. To learn more about PetHub by watching more of their YouTube videos simply follow the link to their channel, PetHub.
How many pets go missing each year?
In America, it’s estimated by The American Humane Association that over 10 million dogs and cats go missing or are reported stolen each year. On Petfinder, there are plenty of statistics about lost pets across America taken from a study which was published in the journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
- Within the study, it finds that only 22% of lost canine companions that enter animal shelters are ever reunited with their owners
- For cats, the statistics are far worse as only 2% of lost cats that enter animal shelters across the country are returned home
- And shockingly, only 58% of pets who had been microchipped and registered in a database had their pet parents contact information available, making it highly unlikely that the unfortunate 42% will ever make it back home
In the UK I struggled to find any up to date statistics but did find an article from 2016 that reveals some interesting findings.
- One in ten dog owners has experienced their canine companion going missing whether that be from their pet running away, being stolen or unknown causes, which is an estimated 807,000 dogs
- Despite it being compulsory by law in the UK that all dogs must be microchipped, one in five dogs is not microchipped which severely decreases their chances of making it back home
- Official police data shows that 1,670 dogs were reported missing in 2015, which is the equivalent of five canine companions going missing every single day
To learn head over to the full original article simply follow the link, Why Microchip Your Pet?
Sadly its believed that these figures are actually much higher due to many cases not being reported to officials. Places with the highest number of reported missing pets within the UK are Northamptonshire (22%), Kent (20%) and West Yorkshire. Places with lower missing pet rates where Cheshire (0.5%), Surrey (0.7%) and lastly, Gloucester (1.2%). To learn more and read the original article simply follow the link, Lost and hound: Five dogs go missing in the UK every day.
Precautions to take to prevent your pet from becoming lost!
Thankfully, there are a few precautions you can take to help prevent the unimaginable taking place.
- First and formost get your pet microchipped.
It is so important to have your pet microchipped as it drastically increases your chances of getting them back home safe and sound. All my girls are microchipped and If you have a pet, regardless of whether they are a house pet and you never think they’ll get out, get them chipped as its much better to be safe than sorry.
- Ensure that your yard or garden is fully secure.
Another important prevention to take is to ensure that your back yard, garden or anywhere your pet spends time is fully secure and there is no chance of them getting out. Do routine checks if you leave your pet out in the garden while you’re at work.
- Place security cameras around your house, garden or yard.
Not all pets that go missing are a result of them getting out on there own and unfortunately, some are stolen. To help decrease the chances of this taking place you should have security cameras in place so that if someone does try to steal your pet or successfully does so you have more of a chance of catching them.
- Lastly, get a GPS collar and sign up for a PetHub accont.
The last thing I suggest doing if you live in America is considering signing up for a PetHub account, from what I’ve read while researching today’s post they seem like a great company dedicated to reuniting lost pets with their worried owners as quickly as possible. Another potential safeguard is to get a GPS collar or tag. Still, I wouldn’t ever suggest leaving any collar on your pet unsupervised as it could get stuck on something and potentially choke your pet when your not there, so never leave your pet unattended with a collar on!
These are just a small handful of potential safeguards you could put in place to help ensure your beloved pet doesn’t go missing in their lifetime. I really hope I never have to go through the heartache and pain of losing one of my girls and I hope the same can be said for you and your four-legged friends.
Thanks for reading today’s post, I hope you all liked learning about PetHub and their mission of reuniting lost pets with their worries owners as quickly as possible. To learn more about PetHub simply follow the link to their website, PetHub.
I really hope today’s post has been useful and don’t forget to check out our Firerowrk post from Bonfire night last year, where you can find lots of helpful tips for keeping your pet calm during fireworks this Independence Day, Bonfire Night 2018, fireworks, frightened pets and how we can help? Thanks for checking in and if you haven’t already make sure to follow/subscribe to epoch.pet to never miss a post, or get in touch with us on Facebook or our other social accounts @epoch.pet
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