Do you have a beloved dog? What is your biggest concern for this sweet pooch? Healthy food? Great play toys? Making sure they never get lost! That’s the primary one I have with all my granddogs, that’s for sure! I never want to tell their mommy about their lost dog! And that’s also top of mind for many owners I know.
Recently, a sweet four-legged friend got temporarily misplaced and I spent some time trying to help find him. We were very grateful for the Good Samaritan who found him, kept him safe, and returned him home thanks to the blessings of Facebook.
In the course of helping find this sweet doggy, I realized that, while I had a lot of lost dog info and resources, they were all scattered in various spots. I decided then and there to put them in one spot to make it easier for you and for me. 🙂
BEFORE YOUR DOG IS LOST
We are BIG believers in being proactive, planning ahead, and being prepared. No matter how careful you are, the reality is that beloved dogs can get lost, as can other types of sweet pets. It doesn’t mean they don’t love us. It just means they like to explore. And if a small child accidentally leaves a door open, a cute pooch solves the mystery of how deep to dig, or another inadvertent activity leads to a requirement to find a pet dog gone missing, there a couple of things you can do to make finding that dog much easier.
- Collar with dog license and a phone number. The license is NOT an option. At least, not in Placer County and Sacramento County! And those licenses require regular rabies shots as well! But a license doesn’t do your puppy any good if it’s not wearing it when they get lost. So make sure you get a comfortable collar that they can wear 24/7 that holds the license and rabies tags securely. For a speedier return of your lost dog, you might also add a tag with a contact phone number so YOUR good samaritan can call you right away. AND if you ever pet-sit an out-of-town pet, a fellow Roseville Grandmother had a great tip – “My grandkids fur buddy stays with me when they go on trips. The first thing I do is add a tag with MY info to his collar. His tag has their out-of-area phone number and they might not even be home for a while.” 🙂
- Chipped! Chips don’t hurt our pets. They aren’t GPS trackers that can track our pets either. What they CAN do is provide a personalized id number for your dog (or cat or other pet) that is readable by special scanners available through various veterinarians, and other places. Once your beloved pet is found, their chip can be read and your information will be available to help reunite you. BUT be sure to REGISTER your pet once they are chipped. Many people apparently forget to and if they do, that chip is pretty much useless. Identifying Lost Pets With Microchips is a very interesting article by the Humane Society explaining all about chips AND giving interesting and encouraging updates that are making it even easier to use chips. 🙂
- Lost Dog Recovery Services? One of my dear friends highly recommends HomeAgain Pet Recovery services. They provide chips but they also work with any chip your pet may already have. The current annual fee for the HomeAgain recovery registration services is only $19.99. (No, I’m not getting paid for this. I just see the peace of mind it gives my friend and wanted to share it with you as well. 🙂 ) For that minimal fee, you get:
- HomeAgain National Pet Recovery Database Service that works with all chips
- Home Again Rapid Lost Pet Tracker Alerts – Within minutes of reporting your pet missing, they send Lost Pet Alerts to HomeAgain vet clinics, animal shelters, and volunteer PetRescuers within a 25-mile radius
- Travel Assistance For Found Pets
- They even provide a 24/7 hotline if your dog or other pet is ill or injured and you need to ask questions
- Home Again has a search box to find local vets in the area that offer microchipping and work with HomeAgain
- One other tip I just read about on Facebook. There are some little trackers – might be spelled TrackRs – that were originally made for finding lost TV remotes, etc. They might be useable on dog collars and some are GPS findable with an app? Might be worth looking into although I think they are fairly new to the market. Amazon had some that you might want to look at – click here. A local pet store might have some tips on those as well.
FIND A LOST DOG
When I was young, if a dog was lost, we could go to the pound or perhaps an SPCA shelter and hope to find it. And that was it. Today, we do have the Placer County SPCA and you definitely want to check there. The Placer SPCA can be reached at (916) 782-7722. You can visit their shelter to view the found dogs plus they do show some that are found on their site (see link below). They only accept Roseville dogs and they do have a list of other pet shelters in case you don’t find your sweet pup at their shelter. Their contact information is:
Placer SPCA Companion Animal Care Center
150 Corporation Yard Road
Roseville CA 95678
916-782-7722 530-885-7387
Tuesday, Friday-Sunday 11am – 4pm
Wednesday – Thursday 2pm – 7pm
Closed Mondays and holidays and occasional other days for training so do call first before going.
Click HERE to see the dogs they have currently FOUND.
FIND A LOST DOG ONLINE
Nowadays, though, we don’t have to stop there. There are so many things do Roseville CA and Sacramento CA area to find our lost pets. We have lots of other great resources thanks to the many pet lovers out there who hate to see lost dogs and love to see family reunions. Here is what I will be using if I ever am called on to find a lost dog or other pet in our area (and YES, if you have other ideas and resources, let us know in the comments or email me at Kaye@KayeSwain.com – and THANK YOU).
Facebook – my first go-to place – there are many great neighborhood groups at Facebook for our area. SOME of them are listed below the cute doggie pix below. I would post a photo with my contact info on the photo (like the doggie pix below) in case it gets shared. If you are not comfortable putting your phone number on Facebook, you can spend a small amount of time – about 1/2 hour – and get a google phone number that rings to your own cell phone and use that number instead. Click here for info —>>> HOW TO GET A GOOGLE VOICE NUMBER. I would suggest getting this now. It’s free. You rarely have to use it. But then you’ll have it handy for all sorts of things like putting ads on Craigslist, finding your lost dog, etc. 🙂
I love this cute dog’s pictures (below) and often use him to illustrate my real estate posts on my blogs or Facebook. This time I put him to work to demonstrate how I would post on Facebook and Craigslist. Of course, if this was real, I’d only use the bottom two lines. And yes, that 657-229-KAYE is MY Google Voice number that I’ve used for years. Don’t you love the KAYE in it? 😉
Then I’d post this photo in Facebook on:
- My personal page (you’re welcome to join me there 😉 )
- My Roseville page
I’d also add it to various appropriate area groups which for me would be:
- Good Neighbors of Roseville CA
- Roseville Lost and Found Pets
- Good Neighbors of Roseville/Rocklin/Granite Bay
- Good Neighbors of Rocklin and Roseville
- Lost and Found Pets – Roseville, Placer, Surrounding Area
- Placer County Lost and Found Pets
- Friends of Nitro (Be sure to read their intro page – even if you don’t want to join the group, they have a great list of even more excellent resources for finding lost pets!)
- Sacramento Pets Group on Facebook
- Other Facebook groups – Type in:
- Group City name
- Group Good Neighbors of City Name
- Click on each to see if it is of interest to you. The Good Neighbor groups are the best for finding lost and found pets though there are also some lost and found sites
All of these are good resources if you find a lost dog as well if you are looking for a lost dog. It’s also wise to join NOW so you don’t have to wait to be approved if you need to post either a lost or found pet.
NEXT DOOR
Are you on NextDoor yet? It’s similar to a Facebook group but much more limited in the area you can communicate with. Even the City of Roseville and the Roseville Police Department like it and share info on it. You are only allowed to pick up to the 10 closest neighborhoods to where you live. That would make it an excellent resource to search for a lost dog – one I totally forgot about last night! (See why I’m typing this all up. 🙂 ) They have a LOST & FOUND section in the left column. Just click it and there are all the lost AND found pets in your immediate area. And, of course, you can post a LOST DOG alert of your own. You can also post pictures on NextDoor. I would recommend that you join Next Door now before you need it. You can be as involved or un-involved as you like. I’ve found some sweet old friends on it and made some new ones and gotten some great advice about vendors – both when I asked and when I just read what others have written. Very handy! If you’re interested in joining or want more info, just click here.
CRAIGSLIST – SEARCHING
Next I’d head to Craigslist – click here for the Greater Sacramento area (which includes Roseville). Then click COMMUNITY, LOST & FOUND. I would just type DOG with no other criteria. Just as I’ve learned when searching the MLS for a house to buy for my real estate clients, not everyone types in the same thing or even the right thing in the right place. By just typing DOG, you will get the most results. You’ll have to weed through them but it can be well worth it. I would also try typing puppy (no matter what your dog’s age). I did those two searches and came up with two listings that weren’t in the dog one. You could even type the breed name in. You never know! I would also go back to the main page, click COMMUNITY, PETS, then type in FOUND in the top. It appears to have different results. I think some people post in one and not the other. I would probably post in both places.*
CRAIGSLIST – POSTING A LOST DOG AD – FREE
Once I checked there and didn’t find my dog, I would then go back to the main page – http://sacramento.craigslist.org/ I have used Craigslist many times for advertising for real estate but never for a lost pet. So I can give some directions, but it might be slightly different when you actually do it. With that warning…click COMMUNITY, click LOST & FOUND, click POST, click COMMUNITY again, click LOST & FOUND again. Fill out the form well. This would be another excellent place to use the Google Voice Phone Number (see above) though I have used both my Google number and my regular number and I have never had a problem. But you never know. In some cases, people are able to get addresses via your phone number. Particularly landlines for homeowners. I would also NOT put your address in this. But you could pick a public place like a grocery store or busy park that is near where your dog got lost, and use that. Once you’ve filled it all in, then type a full description of your beloved dog. I would make sure to use many words to describe them including dog, dogs, puppy, puppies, and lost. I would also use any breed names that qualify and colors of his fur, etc. You never know what the finder might search for. Here’s an example of what you could do. Notice I used my name. I could have used a friend’s name who is a man as an extra safety measure. I put the name of the park and four streets near where it happened. That way if someone searches just that street name, it should still pop up. (By the by – the pix doesn’t have it, but there is a little box at the bottom that says, “ok for others to contact you about other services, products or commercial interests.” I don’t recommend checking that – generally it could mean lots of junk mail.
The next screen is a map where you can make sure the arrow is pointing to the area you want. Make sure it doesn’t show your exact location, but instead shows a nearby park or shopping center that is very close to where your dog was last seen but still protects your privacy. (Can you tell I’ve been watching Criminal Minds 😉 ). The next page is for images. You can add up to 24 photos. Just drag them to the grey area or click upload and add them that way.
And voila! Here is my unpublished draft. *After this is posted, I would then go and do the exact same thing in a different category by going to COMMUNITY, POST, COMMUNITY, PETS. I found different found ads in each place. So I think it is better to post in both spots. I would put the same basic info but I would probably write the ad a wee bit different. I don’t think there’s a problem posting the same ad in each place but with Craig’s List, you never know. 🙂
CALL THE LOCAL VETS
Once all that’s posted, I would call these two Veterinarian Clinics. I read a comment that they are great and are especially good resources when the shelter is closed which makes good sense. I talked to one, Atlantic Vet, and they were terrific. Very caring and helpful. Before I could call Loomis, our little guy was FOUND – HOORAY :). Of course, you can also call all the other veterinarians in the area as well.
Loomis Basin – VCA Loomis Basin Veterinary Clinic – 916-652-5816
Atlantic Veterinarian Hospital – 916-783-4655
GO BACK AND CHECK TO SEE IF SOMEONE HAS FOUND YOUR DOG
Now that you’ve done a ton of work, it’s time to check back at Facebook, the SPCA if they were open, NextDoor and CraigsList to see if there were any results. If not, I’d print out some flyers and go post them on phone poles and signs.
FIND A LOST DOG BEYOND ROSEVILLE CA
This is mostly focused on Roseville. But some good places to start with for other areas include:
- SACRAMENTO SPCA – 916-383-7387
- More resources and ideas from the Sacramento SPCA – (some charge a small fee). Click here to see those.
- Sacramento County Bradshaw Animal Shelter – 916-368-7387
- Placer County SPCA in Auburn – 530-823-7722
- Placer County Animal Services – 530-886-5541
- Citrus Heights Animal Services – 916-725-7387
- Citrus Heights has some great tips and resources and a lost and found hotline! 916-727-4850
- Rocklin CA Animal Control – 916.625.5400
ONCE YOU’VE FOUND YOUR LOST DOG
HOORAY! Hopefully it will be FAST. Be sure to go back to everywhere you posted and let all know. I like to write FOUND on the original post, THEN after a few minutes I delete it and write a new post saying briefly, “The cute Sweetie Pie has been found. Thank you one and all.” That way people know what’s happened BUT it doesn’t keep getting shared by caring people who are in a hurry. And then, don’t forget to re-read the first section on collars, tags, chips, and more. 🙂
P.S. Of course, as I mentioned briefly above, this can apply to more than dogs. Cats, birds, snakes – much of this info applies to any and all sweet pets.
P.P.S. If you are in Roseville and have lost a dog or other pet, feel free to post it on my Roseville Facebook Page – if I can (sometimes I’m not able to due to work or other things going on), I’ll share it again on my main page. Just email me at KayeSwainRE@gmail.com for the links or message me at Facebook.com/RosevilleCaliforniaJoys or Facebook.com/KayeSwainRealEstateInfo or my personal site on Facebook . If I don’t reply, re-do it. (Facebook can hide them or I might be busy and not see them right away.)
