If there’s one site that most (but sadly, not all) rescue organizations and municipal animal shelters use to post their adoptable pets, it would be Petfinder.com. The site uses good technology, and it’s been promoted well enough that it has become the website of choice for posting adoptable rescue animals. I see this as a good thing.
And if there’s one website that most animal shelters use to post pictures and information about the stray pets they take in and house (again, there isn’t!), then that website would be petharbor.com. Pet Harbor is also used for posting shelters’ adoptable pets, but the stray pets posting is what I concern myself with and what I’m referring to. I wouldn’t say that its technology or promotion, and therefore usage, is quite on a par with petfinder.com, but it’s “good enough”. Instructions for using the Pet Harbor website are at eHow, and you can find some statistical data about its traffic at faqs.org.
While there’s not really a substitute for going into a shelter and checking in person, by far the closest thing to that is checking petharbor.com. It’s not without its drawbacks and downsides, and it takes some exploration to figure out its navigation, but it should never be dismissed. It should be a standard part of every search for a missing pet. By that I mean checking it several times a day.
The job can easily be assigned to someone other than the dog’s frantic and depressed owner. In fact, it can be done by someone not anywhere near the area where the dog was lost if that person has a few good pictures of the dog to use for comparisons against the pictures of lost dogs in shelters that are posted to Pet Harbor. Many a lost dog owner has told me “I don’t know many people here since I only moved here a while ago, so no, I don’t have people that can help me with the search” to which I’ve responded in this way:
“Do you have family, college roommates , former neighbors or anyone in your life that live in other parts of the country, but love you and want to help you when you need help? Are there people that would actually be hurt if you didn’t let them help you when you are down? Don’t YOU have friends in other parts of the country that you would want to help in times of need? Let one or two of those people help you by handling the Pet Harbor searching for your lost dog.”
In order to put Pet Harbor to the best use, check in with the shelters in your area that use it, and find out how often the shelter staff and volunteers post to it, and in general, how seriously THEY take it. Hopefully you will find that they update it several times a day. If so, then you should have someone checking it several times a day during any lost dog search.
I operate with people that search through Pet Harbor and Craigslist every day, and who have therefore helped MANY strangers reunite with their lost dogs by telling them something that they didn’t know: that their dog is at the shelter. Often, a person files a lost dog report with the shelter and they then feel they have “checked the box” and they never check back, or even plan to, because they assume they will get a call if the dog makes its way in to the shelter. Many people never learn that they can check the shelter dogs with Pet Harbor.
So if you feel like being a hero, get in the habit of checking Pet Harbor as soon as you learn about a dog that has gone missing. Eventually it will pay off!
1 comment:
I wish all shelters and rescues used Petharbor but unfortunately they don't. I also wish that all shelters used it the same. Some shelters post the dogs that have been found by people when they do not have custody of the dog. Others only post with and without photos. Uniformity would be nice!
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