Using Social Networking to Find a Lost Pet

By Mike Cravens, CEO, Sitters.com

My wife, Christina, and I have a Maltese named Kisses. The dog is really her dog; a gift for her birthday about 4 years ago. I like taking the dog out for walks but that name kind of gets in the way. When I stop to talk to neighbors, it’s hard enough having a 4 pound white fluffy dog at my side - but then I have to tell them that her name is Kisses – not good. My solution was to ‘nickname’ her Killer. At least the nickname gets a laugh or two.

Kisses/Killer loves Christina. That dog literally follows her everywhere, right at her heals. So image my horror when I let the dog out back one day and then forgot about her for several hours. She had taken off and was nowhere to be found. I realized two things at that moment. First, I didn’t really want to know the consequence of losing Christina’s dog. Second, I really had no idea what to do. I drove around the neighborhood and asked the neighbors to watch for her. I spend a lot of time looking for that dog but I never found her. The good news is that she showed up at our front door two days later. Phew.

That was 3 years ago. Back then I didn’t have a blog, wasn’t on Facebook, and did Twitter exist yet? Earlier today I had a neighbor knock on my door asking if I had seen her 4-month old puppy. This family has watched Kisses several times for us while we’ve been out of town and decided to get a puppy based, at least partially, on their good experience with having Kisses around. So I really wanted to help.

I got started by again going around the neighborhood yelling out the puppy’s name. Then I had a thought… I wondered if I could use my connections on social media sites to get the word out and help find this puppy. There is an entrepreneur right in our neighborhood that started a social network just for our community. It’s www.lansdowneliving.com. I got the puppy’s owner to send me a picture and then posted the details about the lost puppy on www.lansdowneliving.com. An email went out to all of the members. I then jumped on Facebook to contact everyone in my community but before I even finished that email, a lady contacted me to let me know that she had found the puppy. Turns out that a local dog walker from Woofies (Woofies .com) had found the puppy and took care of her while trying to locate the owner.

So what should you do if you lost a pet?
The first thing you should do is take a few minutes to get prepared. Write down the last time you saw your pet, get a photo in a format that you can email, and get the cross street that is closest to your house (or where the pet was lost).

1. If you have a homeowner’s association, contact them and ask them to help you get the word out.
2. If you’re a member of Facebook, send a message to all of the people you are connected to that live in your neighborhood. Be sure to include a link to a photo of your pet.
3. Check to see if your community has a site like LansdowneLiving.com, contact them and ask them to help you get the word out.
4. Use MS Word or a similar program to create a flyer. Include a photo, your name and phone number, the pet’s name, and the location where the pet was lost. Distribute the flyer to local businesses.
5. And if the postman/lady is around, ask them if they have seen your pet. If not, hand them a flyer.

I hope you never have to use the tips in this post, but if you do, getting the word out quickly to your social network contacts could really make a difference.