2009.06.02
Lost your doggie?
If one of my pets would go missing, I would be frantic to find him or her. Scouring the neighborhood and the shelters would be a top priority.
It seems now that I could add robo-calls to my bag of pet-finding tools.
A colleague of mine said she got an automated call last Thursday about a lost dog in her area. She said the call provided a general description of the dog and a phone number that she could call if she had any information about the wandering pooch.
The call came from lostmydoggie.com, a California-based service that will issue an Amber alert-style phone message to all your neighbors about your missing critter for a fee.
The call my co-worker received was about Baxter, a wayward Maltese. He has since been found. According to the Web site, a ferret named Will in the Blacksburg area has also been reunited with his family. (They are not limited by the name of the company; the service will list non-canine pets.)
According to the Web site, the company maintains a huge database of residential phone numbers (they don't call businesses) and is exempt for the Do Not Call registry. The calls go out within an hour of the notification and payment of the fees, which run from $75 to $475 depending on the size of the area you want called.
The Web site also offers many useful tips for organizing the search for your missing animal. They say they have an almost 65 percent success rate in finding pets, and offer testimonials from pet parents who were pleased with the service.
You have to wonder how many of those pets would have been found without the phone calls, using good old shoe-leather detective work in searching for the pet.
Have any of you used this service? Have you gotten a call from them? While all of my phones are on the Do Not Call register, I certainly would not object to such a call, but I am clearly an animal lover. What do you think?
I used Findtoto.com when my two border collies escaped the yard. As much as I like the idea ... I didn't get one call in response.
Comment by Teri Evans — June 2, 2009 @ 10:16 pm
I've never used them. I use Home Again and get alerts on missing animals signed up in this area. I would never object to my phone ringing over a missing pet. My last dog Alex got loose a few times and I was in a wild panic until I found him. It is a horrible feeling to have your pet suddenly escape the yard and take off running.
Comment by Deborah — June 3, 2009 @ 10:07 am