Tag Archives: ID tags

Baby, it’s Cold Outside – Keep Your Dog Safe

With the weather becoming blustery, dog owners might consider the following safety tips:

Keep ID tags on your dog at all times along with a properly fitted collar – personal ID tag, Rabies/license tag, and microchip tag. If your dog gets lost, you want the person who finds your dog to be able to easily contact or find you.
Make sure your dog is microchipped and the chip is registered to you. A microchip is a tiny chip implanted between your dog’s shoulder blades; it can be scanned and used to identify your dog. Don’t forget to update your contact information with the microchip registry if you move. (If you adopted your dog from an animal shelter, he/she may be already microchipped. Check your adoption records or ask your veterinarian to scan your dog for a microchip.)
Use a sturdy, traditional leash; slip the loop of the leash over your right thumb and close your fingers tightly around the loop. Use left hand to hold the leash further down. if she/he tries to bolt, you have both hands on the leash.
When children are walking the dog, they should not only be old enough to understand the safety precautions, but also physically strong enough to handle the dog if he/she attempts to bolt.
If you let your dog out into a fenced yard, check the fence on a routine basis to make sure it is secure. Winds and snow can damage your fence.
Be extra cautious with shy/timid dogs. When walking them, make sure they have a properly fitted martingale collar along with a harness; either hook the harness and collar together with one leash or leash separately. Both collar and harness should have ID tags.

Bundle up and enjoy!

Lost Dogs Illinois: More than a posting service…..

You know Lost Dogs Illinois provides free posting of lost and found dogs in Illinois, reuniting over 22,000 dogs in our nearly 6 years of existence, but did you know we do more than that? Take a look below and read about the other services we proudly provide to the Illinois dog community:

www.lostdogsillinois.org is the LDI website packed with educational and resource materials to help prevent losing a dog and guide lost dog owners on how to find their dog. Articles providing resources and action plans are just two of the great resources.

Lost Dogs Illinois has partnered with Helping Lost Pets (HeLP). HeLP is a totally FREE, map-based national lost/found registry which provides 4 different flyer templates.

Tips, articles and other useful resources to assist in finding a lost dog or a lost dog’s owner are posted daily on our Facebook page.

Community Outreach Events are an important way for LDI to spread the word about our services, provide educational handouts and provide free microchip scans for dogs. Also, thanks to an ASPCA grant, LDI is now able to make engraved id tags on the spot at events and provide them at low cost to pet owners.

We believe microchips are an essential part of identifying lost pets and LDI donates microchips to be used by shelters, rescues and animal control agencies at low cost clinics.

Pinterest, Instagram and Twitter are three important social media platforms that LDI also uses.

Education for Animal Welfare Professionals; LDI believes in working not only with the public but animal welfare professionals by presenting best practices for starting a lost dog recovery team and increasing return to owner rates for shelter/rescue/animal control staff.

Also, for owners of lost dogs and finders of lost dogs we don’t just post the dog; they receive an informational email and are directed to our website for tools and resources in lost dog recovery.

So, there is a lot more going on at Lost Dogs Illinois than just the lost and found postings on our Facebook page! We thank you for your support of all our work.

Harnessing The Energy – Part 2

How can rescues and shelters prevent high flight risk dogs from escaping from new adopters, foster homes and even their own facilities? And how can they correctly react when a dog does go missing?

These next few articles will focus on this, starting on how a shelter or rescue can prepare their staff, foster homes, and new adopters for high flight risk dogs.

1. Microchip every dog as soon as it becomes available for adoption, and ENROLL the microchip to the new owner. Some microchip companies do this for free, others have a charge. Offset the cost by adding the enrollment charge (if there is one) into the adoption fee. Simply sending the dog out the door with the paperwork is not enough. Most people have good intentions but may lose the dog before they get the microchip paperwork sent in. They may have just plunked down several hundred dollars for an adoption fee and supplies. The microchip paperwork may get set aside until the next payday and by then it might be too late.

2. Put visible identification on every foster or newly adopted dog before it leaves. ASPCA research shows that 89% of newly adopted pets were still wearing the tags a shelter or rescue put on them six weeks after adoption.

3. Use a martingale collar on every dog (see photo above). These are great for the shy dog that has learned to back out of a standard collar. Also, consider using a sensation harness along with a martingale collar (either by using two leads or clip the lead to both O rings) for those that are extremely high risk.

4. Educate your foster homes and new adopters on the challenges of high flight risk dogs. Put together a packet of information for them to include in their adoption paperwork. Here is a sample from Lost Dogs Illinois that you can use.

Read part 3 https://www.lostdogsillinois.org/harnessing-the-energy-part-3/

Previous article https://www.lostdogsillinois.org/harnessing-the-energy-part-1/