Tag Archives: ID tags

Coalitions Work to Keep Families Together in Illinois

This year already  Lost Dogs Illinois has partnered with several groups to offer free vaccines, microchips, collars and leashes and engraved ID tags. We pride ourselves in helping to preserve the human-animal bond.

April, 2017 – LDI partnered with Garrido Stray Rescue Foundation and Realtors to the Rescue to offer Free microchips and engraved ID tags to over 120 dogs and cats at the 16th Chicago Police District.

May 13, 2017 – LDI partnered with the Chicago Wolves to provide free services to over 535 dogs and cats at the McGuane Park, Chicago.

May 21st LDI along with One Tail at a Time and Alive Rescue offered free services to over 350 dogs and cats in the South Lawndale area.

 

Lost Dogs Illinois also offered 50 free microchips each to Whiteside County Animal Control and Lee County Animal Control for their low cost microchip clinics in May and June.

To round off our spring events, LDI attended Pawberry Lane Open House in April to provide free microchip scans.

LDI provided free microchip scans at the Humane Society of Aurora in May.

 

Thanks to Perfect Pooches rescue Lost Dogs Illinois was able to share a booth with them at the Paws on Route 66 in Joliet.

Please continue to support Lost Dogs Illinois and their mission by making a tax-deductible donation

Click here:  https://lostdogsillinois.org/support-ldi/

Organizations Working Together To Keep Families and Pets in Their Homes

Another busy Saturday in Englewood for Lost Dogs Illinois, Chicago Wolves, Realtors to the Rescue, Barriers Against Repeated Cruelty, Pals with Pawz and others.  Over 380 dogs and cats received free vaccinations, food, toys, free microchips, free collars, harnesses, leashes and a personal engraved ID tag.  This summer 1,616 dogs and cats in Aldermen Raymond Lopez’s 15th ward received these much needed free services.

Lost Dogs Illinois, Chicago Wolves and Realtors of Rescue joined forces this summer to help those who live in underserved areas. We believe in preserving the human/animal bond and with these Free Health Clinics it has given families and their four legged members hope.

In order to keep those momentum going, LDI needs your help.  A small donation of $10.00 will purchase an ID tag and a collar/leash. You can donate by clicking here. https://www.lostdogsillinois.org/support-ldi/donate/

Pictures tell it all…….

Chip, LDI's mascot. waiting for the event to start.

Chip, LDI’s mascot. waiting for the event to start.

Chicago residents lining up for the clinic.

Chicago residents lining up for the clinic.

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This pretty girl left with a new pink harness, martingale collar w/her ID tag attached and two new leashes.

Oh those ears!!!!

Oh those ears!!!!

Cats even received microchips, collars and ID tags.

Cats even received microchips, collars and ID tags.

Waiting to be size for a harness and collar.

Waiting to be size for a harness and collar.

Volunteer putting an ID tag on the dog's collar.

Volunteer putting an ID tag on the dog’s collar.

 

 

 

Paving the Way to Keep Dogs with their Families

At the Pullman Area Free Pet Health Fair (Saturday, 9/24th) approximately 356 dogs and cats received a personally engraved IG tag donated by Lost Dogs Illinois. As each dog left the clinic, their tag was attached to their new collar.  They also received free vaccines, microchips which were registered to the owner at implant. Food, toys,  collars and leashes were also donated. Thanks to the Chicago Wolves organization for sponsoring this clinic.The Chicago Wolves .  Lost Dogs Illinois would like give a special shout out to Realtors to the Rescue who have generously donated over $5,000 to LDI this year to allow us to participate in these events.  These various free services reached over 380 dogs and cats.

For us to continue this kind of program, a small donation of $10.00 will purchase an ID tag and a collar/leash. You can donate by clicking here. https://www.lostdogsillinois.org/support-ldi/donate/

These series of photos say it all……

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Preserving Human/Animal Bond

Waiting in the shade.

Last Saturday in sizzling heat of 90 degrees-plus, approximately 100 dogs and a couple of cats received free vaccinations, microchips with free lifetime registration, flea and tick products, Martingale collars, leashes and an engraved ID tag that was promptly attached to each pet’s collar.  Thirty-five volunteers from other organizations and Lost Dogs Illinois partnered together to work with North Chicago Animal Control.

Lost Dogs Illinois is one of the first organizations in the state dedicated to preserving the human/animal bond. We believe people want to do right by their animals.  When you bring affordable services and resources to a community, they will come.  So in that tone, we think these pictures says it all……

Best Buddies!

Best Buddies!

Engraving ID tags

Engraving ID tags

Love!

Love!

Dogs love kids!

Dogs love kids!

Attaching an ID tag

Attaching an ID tag

Joy!

Joy!

Registration and Free goodie bags

Registration and Free goodie bags

Waiting patiently!

Waiting patiently!

Photo credits….Amy K.

Scanning to make sure the microchip was inserted.

Scanning to make sure the microchip was inserted.

Chipped and tagged ready to go!

Chipped and tagged ready to go!

Chicago Pets Benefiting from New ID Tag Engraver at Chicago Animal Care and Control

Misty getting her new tag.  Her family being reunited with Misty

Misty getting her new tag. Her family being reunited with Misty

Chicago Animal Care and Control took one giant leap for petkind recently by adding a high-tech ID tag-engraving machine to its shelter facilities.

CACC Administrative Services Officer Susan Cappello said the non-profit group, Friends of Chicago Animal Care and Control, donated a VIP Pet ID tag machine to the shelter in January 2016.

“The Pet ID Tag machine will be used to provide free pet ID tags to all customers who adopt a new pet, find their lost pet, and attend our monthly low-cost pet vaccine clinic,” Cappello told Lost Dogs Illinois via email. “In less than one week of use, CACC made over 10 tags already to new or existing pet owners.”

Cappello added that CACC’s next low-cost vaccine clinic will be held Feb. 17 and that “[W]e plan to provide a pet ID tag to every customer” that day.

Providing pets with ID tags can help shelters reduce overcrowding. A 2010 study conducted by The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals suggested that pet ID tags containing owner contact information make it easier for people to help get that animal home should it become lost. That allows a shelter to direct its resources to supporting true homeless pets.

ID tag and collar

ID tag and collar

“Having a microchip is a great safety measure for emergencies or if the pet loses a tag or collar,” Dr. Emily Weiss, vice president of shelter research and development for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals told New York Times blogger Tara Parker-Pope in 2011. “But an ID tag is the simplest, easiest way to assure your pet is going to get home.”

Chicago Animal Care and Control strongly recommends that all pet owners microchip and obtain a collar and tag for their pets, Cappello said.

Cats that get lost are nine times more likely to be reunited with their owner if they arrive at a shelter with a collar and tag or microchip,” Cappello emphasized.  “Dogs are five times more likely to be returned home to their owner if they have a collar and tag or microchip.

“If your pet gets lost and is found by our shelter, we will research the tag and microchip information and contact you as soon as possible,” Cappello said. “Collars with identification are your pets’ fastest ticket back to you should they become lost.”

Joliet ID machine 5.2015

Engraving an ID tag at Joliet Township Animal Control

CACC joins Joliet Township Animal Control as two major Northern Illinois municipal animal control programs now offering ID tags as part of the adoption/retrieval package. JTAC, which serves Joliet, Joliet Township, Crest Hill and Rockdale, used part of a $20,000 grant awarded it by The Petco Foundation, in partnership with Natural Balance Pet Foods, to purchase its machine in March 2015.

ILresearch

Thank you Lydia Rypcinski for writing this article!

 

 

 

“The Chicago Way” Helps Kyra Get Home

 

Kyra 2 11-30-15

Kyra

Long-time Chicago residents are familiar with “The Chicago Way”:  it’s often not what you know, but who you know, that gets things done in this city.

So when Andy Csapo opened the tool shed in back of his family’s funeral home on Chicago’s Northwest on Nov. 20 and saw two eyes glowing in the back of the shed, the first thing he did was tell his wife, Joyce.

“The shed is just an enclosed outdoor stairwell, and the door has a missing slat on the bottom, so it must have crawled through that,” Andy said.

“I could make out a large animal with a dark coat trying to hide under the lowest stair. I knew it was some kind of dog; too big to be a coyote or raccoon.”

Can you find Kyra?

Can you find Kyra?

There is Kyra!

There is Kyra!

The Csapos did not want to call Chicago’s Animal Control for help, because they didn’t want the dog taken to the city pound. Joyce called her daughter, Joy, and asked Joy to call a friend who does animal rescue transports for help.

The transporter, Lydia Rypcinski had never done an actual rescue. However, she knew Susan Taney, founder of Lost Dogs Illinois, and called Susan for advice.

Susan referred Lydia to Katie Campbell, an experienced dog rescuer who lives on Chicago’s South Side.

Katie suggested that Andy cover the opening in the door, provide the dog with blankets, food and water, and make sure it was secure until she could get to the funeral home the next day. With Chicago’s biggest November snowstorm in 127 years approaching that night, Katie’s concern was that the dog stay in one place, protected from the elements.

The next afternoon, Katie arrived with hot dogs and her “snappy snare” and was able to secure and bring the dog out of the shed. The dog had a collar and nametag – “Kyra” – with a phone number on the back.

Kyra, a handsome 3-year-old black-and-white pit bull, was bundled into blankets and lifted into Lydia’s car while Katie called the number on the tag.

“It’s their dog!” she shouted as she got off the phone. Kyra’s family had posted the dog’s picture on Lost Dogs Illinois eight days earlier, after Kyra escaped from the back yard of their house two miles north of Meiszner Funeral Home. Katie was able reference the posting to verify that the dog was indeed theirs.

Kyra’s owners, the Ortiz family, were ecstatic to welcome Kyra home.

“The kids were jumping up and down and their other dog knocked [Kyra] right over when I brought her inside,” Katie said. “You could see her family really loves her.”

“I thought I would never see her again,” Sandra Ortiz said. “My family and friends told me to file a missing dog report on Lost Dogs Illinois. Several people called who thought they had found my dog but hadn’t, and I was starting to lose hope. I have three kids. My youngest was asking if Kyra was not going to live with us anymore. I didn’t know what to say.

“When Katie called, we were in tears.”

Welcome Home Kyra!

Welcome Home Kyra!

A trip to the vet revealed that Kyra had dropped from 57 to 33 pounds, that her sugar levels were high, and that she had cold burn rashes on her paws but otherwise was in good health. She was microchipped right away, and the faulty latch on the back gate was fixed to pre-empt future escapes.

A week later, Kyra had regained much of the weight and was happily romping with the Ortiz children and their other dog, a Shih Tzu named Bear.

“Bear was really excited to see her again, he had been getting depressed without her,” Sandra said.

“We’re so grateful to have her back,” Sandra added. “Thanks to everyone who helped bring Kyra home.”

The Chicago Way and Lost Dogs Illinois.  That’s a winning ticket in The City That Works.

Kyra and Sandra Ortiz BEST 11-30-15

Kyra and Sandra – one week later!

Thank you Lydia Rypcinski for sharing Kyra’s story!

ASPCA’s Position Statement on Shelter Responsibilities Regarding Lost Pets

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The ASPCA has recently released a Position Statement on Responsibilities of Animal Shelters. We are very pleased that they have put a high emphasis on shelter transparency and proactively reuniting lost pets with their families.

Below are some excerpts from this Position Statement. Does your local shelter or stray holding facility do these things? We would like to see American shelters and stray holding meet these standards and feel that there is a need for legislation to enforce them.  Please discuss these items with your state legislators and ask that they be mandated for all American shelters and stray holding facilities.

Goal 3: Owned animals are quickly and reliably returned to their owners

A. Shelters must check for ID, including microchips, tattoos, etc., at the time of intake.  Checking animals for identification at the time of intake should be required by law of all animal shelters, public and private. The administrative burden associated with this requirement is minimal compared to the benefits of quickly reuniting animals with their owners. This requirement should be extended to owner-surrendered animals, as the information concerning ownership of a micro-chipped animal can confirm current ownership, shed light on possibility that other owners may exist, and must be updated regardless in the event of a subsequent adoption.

B. Shelters must serve notice to identified owners of stray animals, and the hold times for stray animals must account for mail delivery. Even in 2015, the U.S. Mail continues to represent the method by which many, if not most, people receive communications from local government, utility companies, financial institutions, the courts, etc. Thus, the mail represents a relatively reliable means of communication, and while other means of contacting owners are encouraged, shelters should be required to serve notice to identified owners by mail, regardless of other methods of communication that might be attempted. In order to provide owners with a meaningful opportunity to reclaim their animals, stray animal hold times should be of sufficient length to account for the additional time that notice by mail requires.

C. Shelters must provide public notice, appropriate to the community, of stray animals entering the shelter.  Shelters have an obligation to give notice to the community of stray pets that enter their facilities in order to assist and facilitate the return of those pets to their owners. While online postings, whether on a shelter’s website or other web platforms, have become commonplace, this may still not be feasible for all shelters. Thus, the form this notice should take may vary by community. Nevertheless, notice that is reasonably calculated to reach community members should be required of all shelters accepting stray animals.

D. Shelters must provide clear notice to the public concerning shelter locations, hours, fees and the return-to-owner process.  The ASPCA strongly supports requiring the provision of this information to the public. Where possible, it should be available on a shelter’s website, but certainly, information regarding fees and the return-to-owner process should be available in written form at the shelter itself.

E. Shelters must establish a reasonable process for matching stray animals admitted to the shelter with reports of lost pets received by the shelter from owners.  The ASPCA supports a requirement that shelters establish and publicize a reasonable process for helping stray pets return to owners in search of them. The most effective approaches will include a process for monitoring lost pet reports for possible matches with stray animals admitted to the shelter. However, because the appearance of an animal may change significantly while lost, or information provided in lost pet reports may be incomplete or inaccurate, the ASPCA believes that shelters should provide clear notice to owners searching for their lost pets that there is no substitute for visiting the shelter in person.

F. Shelters must be accessible to the public during reasonable hours for the return-to owner process.  The ASPCA supports a requirement that shelters be accessible during reasonable hours to owners seeking to reclaim their pet. These hours should include some reasonable additional period of time beyond the typical workday (e.g. 9am to 5pm Monday through Friday) so that pet owners who may not have flexible work schedules have the best opportunity to reclaim their pets. What constitutes “reasonable” access depends on factors including the length of the hold period, the nature of the community, e.g., urban, suburban, rural, and the resources of the shelter.

G. Shelters should be authorized and encouraged to reduce or waive redemption fees.  For the reasons discussed above in relation to adoption and placement, the ASPCA supports the granting of specific authorization for shelters to reduce or waive fees to owners seeking to reclaim their pets and encourages shelters to regularly and consistently use this tool to reunite more pets with their families.

H. Return-to-owner from the field should be expressly authorized.  The ASPCA strongly supports legal authorization of return-to-owner from the field for animals with identification. This practice not only reduces burdens on shelters, but it straightforwardly accomplishes the goal of quick and reliable return.

 

Update on House Bill 4029

Emma and owners

On April 29, 2015 Lost Dogs Illinois wrote a plea to our LDI Fans to support House Bill 4029, which would support more reunions of lost dogs with their families.

We are happy to report that the Bill 4029 has passed.

This bill requires shelters and rescues (the same as animal control facilities) to scan intake animals for a microchip multiple times before releasing the animal. It also includes veterinary clinics and hospitals that provide this same service to do the same.

The bill also requires that if the first person listed on the microchip cannot be contacted, the shelter must notify the second contact if one is listed.  Also, shelters must notify the owner when they are identified and transfer dogs with identified owners to a local animal control or law enforcement agency for the animal to be reclaimed.  If they cannot transfer the animal, they must hold the animal for at least 7 days prior to removing the animal.

Thank you to Senator Thomas Cullerton, the key sponsor of the bill.

Thank you Guy and the Anti-Cruelty Society for your blog about the importance of ID tags and Microchipping!

Wally

On April 29, 2015, the Anti-cruelty Society posted this blog What’s in a name…if you don’t have proper ID?

While we are thrilled that Anti-Cruelty is promoting microchipping and ID tags as a way to get lost pets home, we would have hoped that this campaign would have been promoted soon after the ordinance was passed. There was a window of four months before the ordinance was implemented that Chicago  animal welfare organizations could have offered free and low cost microchip clinics in low income and under served areas. Also, a public campaign about the change of the stray hold should have been implemented.

It is stated in Anti-Cruelty’s blog that historically the return to owner (RTO) rate is 2% for lost pets without identification or microchips. Although this may be statistically true, in our opinion, reducing the stray hold was a knee jerk reaction that will result in the missed reunions of many family pets. Implementing more proactive procedures to return more lost pets home should have been the first approach. For your review, we have included our recommendations that were presented two years ago to the Chicago Animal Care and Control (CACC) Management team. These recommendations were never introduced.

Why We Do Not Endorse Lost Dog Tracking Devices and Tag

The Garmin  GTU - 10. Soon to be useless! It is still offered through 3rd party websites. Don't waste your money!

Although this article was written in 2015, we still do not endorse GPS tags  or devices for the reasons stated below.

Thanks to the power of social media and the loyalty of our fans,   Lost Dogs Illinois, Lost Dogs of Wisconsin  and the sister organizations of  Lost Dogs of America have developed a very large Facebook following and audience (over 200,000 Facebook fans).   Many product developers contact us hoping that we will endorse their products.  The lost pet product market is booming.  Distraught owners will spend a lot of money both before and after their beloved pet goes missing.

These new devices range from nifty, high-tech ID tags to complicated GPS tracking devices that you affix to a collar.  The problem is that they all rely on a company that may or may not be around in a couple of years. Competition amongst these companies is fierce. Many will fail. I want to take a few minutes to share my story.

I have a high-flight risk dog named Pixie.  We often leave Pixie at a boarding kennel when we are out of town so my husband felt that purchasing  a collar tracking device would give us peace of mind while we were away.

My husband did the research on several devices and  purchased a GTU-10 mobile tracking device from a trusted company, Garmin. It cost about $200 and required a $50 yearly service fee.   The pros of the device: highly accurate, waterproof, easy to attach to the collar.   The cons:  a short battery life when it was in “search” mode, and it was fairly large and heavy for a small dog.

Regardless, we were happy with it. Until recently.

A visit to the Garmin website revealed the following message.  (We did not receive any notification from Garmin).

Here is what they have said:  “The connected services provider for your GTU 10 has determined to cease operations of its 2G network by approximately Jan. 1, 2016. Unfortunately, the third-party services necessary to support the network connectivity operations of your GTU 10 unit will be impacted. At this time, there is no viable alternative of such services; therefore, after such date your GTU10 unit will no longer be operational. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

The device will be useless by January 1, 2016. They are not going to offer a replacement device and they have not offered any sort of credit or refund despite my phone calls to their customer service department. One of the customer service representatives actually had a “too bad, so sad” attitude that we had spent several hundred dollars with Garmin and are now going to have a useless device.

Lesson learned and let this be a warning to all. GPS and cellular phone technology is changing so rapidly that many companies that are here today will be gone tomorrow. Although Garmin is not going out of business, the company that provided the support services for the GTU-10 is and apparently there is no viable alternative.

The best way to protect your dog is with a good old-fashioned visible ID tag (not a fancy gizmo tag that connects to a service) and a microchip from one of the 5 big reputable companies (Datamars, Home Again, AVID, 24 Petwatch or AKC) that has your current information registered.  If your dog goes missing, get the word out using old-fashioned flyers and  intersection signs.  Based on our 10 years of operation, flyers and signs are the Number One way that lost dogs are found.

Create your free flyer and social media links by filing a report with our partner, Pet FBI at www.petfbi.org.  One of our volunteers will post it to the appropriate state or provincial Facebook page.

1/15/2021

Kathy Pobloskie, Director and Co-Founder Lost Dogs of Wisconsin; Co -Founder and Co-Director of Lost Dogs of America