Community Corner
San Antonio: Futuristic Tech Tool From Petco Love Helps Animal Care Services Reunite Lost Pets With Their Families
"We know that one in three pets goes missing in their lifetime, an estimated 10 million pets each year, and we're not ok with that,"
April 23, 2021
Futuristic tech tool from Petco Love helps Animal Care Services reunite lost pets with their families
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Innovative database uses breakthrough facial recognition technology to find missing pets; now available on ACS website
CONTACT: Lisa Norwood, 210.207.6665
Lisa.norwood@sanantonio.gov
SAN ANTONIO (April 23, 2021) – Animal Care Services is marking today’s National Lost Dog and Cat Awareness Day with the debut of another tool to help local pet parents find their missing pets. Now, ACS proudly joins forces with Petco Love, (formerly known as the Petco Foundation), a national non-profit working to lead and inspire change for animals, on a shared mission to help reunite even more lost pets with their families.
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Petco Love Lost is a new, searchable national database that uses patented facial recognition technology to scan uploaded photos of a missing dog or cat to determine if that pet is at a participating shelter or with a neighbor in the community. ACS Director of Operations Bethany Colonnese says the easy-to-use technology will be available to everyone. “There’s nothing more rewarding than reuniting families with their beloved pets and we’re confident the Petco Love Lost database can help foster more of those happy reunions here in San Antonio,” said Colonnese. “That’s why we want to make it easily accessible. We’ll have a direct link to Petco Love Lost on our ACS website and we encourage anyone who’s lost a pet to use it.”
“We know that one in three pets goes missing in their lifetime, an estimated 10 million pets each year, and we’re not ok with that,” said President of Petco Love, Susanne Kogut. “That gives us 10 million reasons why we created Petco Love Lost, because we believe nothing is more important than keeping people and pets together for a lifetime of love. Together with San Antonio’s Animal Care Services, our goal is to keep pets where they belong - at home, with you.”
The new database is the latest resource Animal Care Services has made available for local pet lovers. The Lost and Found Pet Network is an ACS Facebook group which leverages volunteers to share pictures of shelter pets through their social media networks. Links to both tools can be found on the ACS website at www.saacs.net.
This press release was produced by the City of San Antonio. The views expressed here are the author’s own.