Welcome to Animal Posse, the podcast dedicated to the people and rescues making a difference in the lives of animals. Welcome everybody. We're gonna have an interesting show today. We are gonna be welcoming Jeanette Garlow. She is the director for microchip help.com and also the co-director for Lost Dogs Illinois

Hello.

Hi Jeanette. How are you?

I'm good.

To get started, tell me a little bit about yourself.

This is Jeanette Garlow. I am the co-director for Lost Dogs Illinois. I have been with Lost Dogs, Illinois for nine years now, and I am also the director for Microchip Help.com and I have been with Microchip help for nearly nine years as well. Started that almost a year after my start with lost Dogs Illinois. And we reunite, lost and found dogs with their families.

What prompted you to get involved with helping people find their lost dogs?

As most people in animal welfare, i've always had a passion for dogs. Just even as a toddler, I would gravitate to dogs. I have always had empathy for dogs and shelters and I know, deep down that some of these animals are there and don't belong there. That there's homes they belong in. And I had a friend about over nine years ago who lost her dog and I was helping her. I was very involved with helping her find her dog. And that's when I learned about Lost Dogs Illinois. And just felt like that was something that aligned with everything that I felt in my heart. That's how I got involved with the organization, fell in love with what they do and that's where I started.

Yeah. I'm very passionate about helping people find their pets as well. I started some groups on Facebook.

Yeah.

Several years ago and I got involved 'cause it's an easy way to help people from home,

absolutely.

Everybody can do it. And I know I got in touch with you because we had a cat pop up on our group and it had a microchip, but the microchip didn't go anywhere. And that would be what's called like a dead end microchip. And normally I'm pretty good at tracking them, but with this one I got really stuck. So I sent that information over to you and you were able to pull up that information right away. The cat did end up going home. We did find the owner and I know we did tell the owner to go ahead and make sure that all the information for the microchip was updated. Can you explain what a dead end microchip is and why it is a common problem with pet reunification?

Absolutely. So as I said, I'm the director for microchip help. We have researched, oh, about 1500 chips just last year of the dead end microchips. And what they are either a microchip that is registered to an owner. The owner information has not been updated either it's the same owner with a new address and phone number. They've moved, they haven't updated the chip or it the owner had rehomed the dog. And therefore the information is updated as well. Or we have many scenarios where the chip has just never been registered and and. You have to look for the facility that microchip the dog or cat and contact them, get the owner information. Sometimes that information is also outdated. And then you have the scenario where the microchip is just impossible to find even who the manufacturer or the implant facility, person or facility that, that actually microchip the. Those are a little bit more of a challenge but it without, we find that 30 to 40% of people don't ever register their microchip and facilities and rescues. Assume that people go home and follow directions, read the paperwork, call the chip company, make sure their information's in. People get home, they're excited to have their new animal, or they get home from picking up their animal from a shelter after being reunited. If it's been missing a while, they forget. They don't think about it, they don't realize. But super important to make sure that even if you do register, that you call back later and make sure that the information was input correctly. We're all human and sometimes numbers are entered wrong. So we always suggest that, but anytime you have an address or phone number changed, super critical that you contact the chip company and change that information with them. That's really the only way that. That there's gonna be an easy way for your animal to be reunited. If there's no ID tag on, which of course we recommend ID tags first and foremost, and the microchip as well to back that up. 'Cause those are sometimes missing. Super important. We also recommend you have an alternate contact on your microchip that you trust, either a family member or a close friend in case something happens to you or you're out of town, you can't be reached. And always make sure that gets updated to somebody you trust as well. We've had cases where the alternate contact was an ex and they really didn't own the dog anymore, but they were contacted and picked the dog up and things like that. Super important to, to be aware of who your microchip is registered to, and the contact information be current.

Can you take us like, I guess through the beginning of basically like what is a microchip? For people that don't know what a microchip is, and they always hear this term, you're gonna get your pet microchipped. Or they adopt an animal from the shelter and the shelter says, okay, it is microchipped Can you explain what that is? A little bit?

So a microchip is about the size of a grain of rice. It's implanted under the animal skin, usually between the shoulder blades, and what they do is they each contain a unique identification number. So when a lost pet is found, a microchip scanner, which picks up the frequency of that microchip, reads the identification number, and then it displays it on the screen so that microchip is supposed to be registered with a database. Which links it to the owner's contact information. So it's basically a little chip that, that goes under the skin that contains a unique number, and that number is linked to the owner if it's registered.

So if somebody picks up a pet and the pet is microchipped, you'd wanna take it to a vet or a scanning station and get it scanned. To see if it has a microchip.

Yes. A vet, A lot of police departments have scanners, animal control facilities can scan the dog, like you said, a vet even like a pet smart, they oftentimes will have a scanner. But if you call around, you can almost always find something really close by. And yes, as soon as that chip number comes up on the scanner, that, so once you pull that chip number up, if you check Aha, this is how it should work if you go onto the pet microchip lookup database online, it will tell you where that microchip is registered, if it is registered, and then you would call that microchip company and you would owner information from that. Super important to have your animal microchip and, registered because without a caller, an ID tag on. That's really the only way somebody can know that is your dog.

Absolutely. And another thing that I would like to mention too, 'cause I think there's this misconception that a microchip is GPS. And it definitely is not GPS. So if your pet does go missing, you wanna notify that microchip company as well to tell them that your pet is missing because it doesn't have any kind of GPS. Yeah. You're not gonna be able to find out from that microchip where your pet is actually located.

Correct. People do think that they are GPS also, but they are not. They have to physically be taken somewhere to be scanned to get that chip number, and that's the only way you're gonna to know if the dog has a microchip.

Now, have you ever come across any situations to where the microchip has migrated to another portion on the body? I know they insert it between the shoulder blades, but I have heard that they could also move like down the arm or a little bit off to the side of the shoulder.

Oh, yes, they definitely can. And yes, there's, we've definitely run across that. A good facility will know to scan the dog or cat thoroughly like an s pattern across their body from their shoulder blades, to their back end and down their legs, up and down their legs as well. It does happen, see they're implanted and they're supposed to grab into the muscle tissue right there. They do over time sometimes they can migrate. And we always recommend once when your dog is microchipped, to keep 'em quiet for 24 hours, no baths. Not a lot of huge playful activity. 'cause you know you wanna let that kind of settle into the tissue.

Can you run us through the process of somebody contacting you for a dead end microchip? What is step one? What do you do? And also is this something that people can do at home on their own,

On their own? Some of it they can, yes. If the chip is registered, it should be an easy process. It's how it should work. So how we work? Let me explain I guess how it should work and then what to do if it doesn't. So when a, when you find an animal, if you get the dog scanned, and as I mentioned before, if the dog has a microchip and you put the number into the pet microchip lookup tool. It's called aha. It's the American Animal Hospital Association. They have a registry and it shows where the chip is registered and it may show the chip is registered into what company, along with the contact information for that chip company. or. It may show that the microchip is not registered, but it might show you what company to call to find out who the chip was sold to, like if it was sold to a vet, then you can contact the vet clinic and find the owner information. Very often. When a good Samaritan finds an animal and calls a vet clinic, they will try to contact the owner themselves rather than giving out personal information. That is the same with same be true for most chip companies. A lot of times the information is private, but they will reach out to the owner for you and get in touch with them and have them contact you. But. When you contact the microchip company, they should be able to provide you who they sold the chip to so that you can contact that facility. Or another scenario is when you put the number in aha. It might show a list of manufacturers that possibly manufactured the chip. And with those cases, very often you're gonna have a dead end. And as I mentioned there's different scenarios for dead end. It could be outdated information, could be the dog was re-homed and the information isn't current again, or that you can't find any owner information. So in that case. We recommend you submit to us to microchip help.com. It's a quick jot form, so you would just fill out that form. It comes to us directly, to our nonprofit organization. And the case gets posted to our group. We have a group of about 20 volunteers right now all across the nation. We do the same thing. We get the chip number from your jot form. It'll have all your information where the dog was found, the microchip number, how long you're gonna hold the dog, if the dog gets taken somewhere else. We get cases from shelters, police departments that clinics as well. And we work with a lot of animal control facilities throughout the nation. So we're pretty busy. I. But if you're a good Samaritan, yes, you can take those steps, as I mentioned before, get the chip number, check aha check if it's registered. Contact the chip company. If the chip company contact the owner for you. Great. If they provide you information some will, not all will. It depends if there's a privacy on that information or not. So yes, you can do these things at home, but when you hit a dead end, submitting the form to us is super helpful because, and depending on the scenario when you submit it to us, as I said, it gets posted to our group. We look up the same thing that you would've done. We look up the chip number, we check aha, we call the manufacturer, or we, we have agreements with them. So we get owner information. As a shelter or police department would, animal control facility would, because of our nonprofit and because of the work that we do we've made agreements with the chip company so the information isn't held private from us. So we get the owner information or we, if it's one of those chips where you couldn't figure out who the manufacturer was. We work really hard on trying to get some information on who the chip came from, who the chip was sold to, trying to get owner information that way. And we take that information if it's outdated owner, if we have an owner's name and the information's outdated, we have a few paid subscriptions that we use. And we do background searches skip tracing, if you wanna call it that. And we work on reaching that owner or a family member, people at the address things like that. We so we're really diligent about trying to make sure that we have turned everything. That we can to find this owner. Yeah, ask, I think if there's anything else that I missed. So yeah, that's basically what we do in a nutshell.

I know it works. 'cause like I said, I had that one that I totally hit a dead end on and you were able to come through with that one now. Another thing too that I would like to mention, just from like the chips that I have gotten and the groups that I work on, 'cause sometimes people will contact me, give me the chip, is I find a lot of times they'll take the animals maybe to a vet clinic. They'll get 'em scanned, they'll start doing the process and they never ever hear from the owner. And so at that point they start going into panic mode. I found that if at that point if I text who the owner is, usually the owner will come through right away and reply to the text and be like, oh yeah, that's my pet. I've been looking for my pet. So do you think it would be helpful when you bring a lost pet to the vet's office to scan if it does scan for a chip to tell them to maybe text the owner instead of calling? Because I think sometimes with the calling they, you get those kind of robocalls and a lot of people just tend to ignore those.

100%. Yes. We work with one large animal control facility and they do not have the capability to text. And I do feel that is a definite detriment because you're right, people think everything's a scam. They don't answer, they don't pay attention. I don't know if it. What the actual screen is showing when those numbers call. But we find the same thing that when we text and especially we like to text a photo of the animal that it really makes a difference in the responses that you can get. We always call first just to see if it's a working number. We listen to see if the owner. Has an outgoing message with their name, so we know we've got the correct phone number because sometimes you're calling and texting someone that you know the number really isn't current, but you don't know that. So we always call first and then we follow up with a text with why we're calling and with a photo of the animal. And it helps tremendously if the phone number's correct and if it's not, they'll say, I'm sorry, this is the wrong number. She used to have this number before, or something like that. So definitely, I agree with you a hundred percent that texting. Is way better than the phone calls and emails. We follow up with emails as well. But again, not everyone's checking emails as often. So texting is definitely the quickest and most successful way. We Facebook message, we do all kinds of things to reach owners. We spend a lot of time, exhausting everything we do. LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, anything we can find on these owners just in case they're not getting the messages. If the phone numbers aren't working and emails aren't going through and things like that. But yes, I agree. Texting is huge. I wish all the facilities could start with that,

You said you have a group about 20 volunteers. Do you ever recruit new volunteers if people wanted to assist with this?

Oh yeah. We're always open to taking new volunteers. We like people that are self-starters, don't mind making phone calls that like to do detective type of work and are adamant about finding families non-judgmental. We don't judge the owners. We feel everyone should be able to have a dog if. As long as they're not abusing or neglecting, things like that. But yeah, we're always looking for volunteers that fit that kind of slot.

Okay. I'll include a link to your site too in the description so that way people can contact you.

Thank you. Yeah.

If they're interested. So I'd like to move on to your work with Lost Dogs of Illinois and,. If you could go over when your pet goes missing, what are the top three things maybe that you should do to try to locate your pet

We have a list of five things people should do when their pet goes missing. So first thing we and these aren't necessarily all in order, depends on the scenario. Dogs are missing from accidents, car accidents, or from a pet sitter, things like that. But if the dog's missing from home we say immediately put out food, water and your dog's bed or an article of your clothing. Even a used pillowcase at the location where your dog was last seen. A lot of times dogs will circle around and come, just come back to the area they took off from. That's just their instinctual. Pattern. If they're chased however, or, pushed out of the area for whatever reason then, that's harder for them to make their way back. But scent items are huge. So food, water, your dog's bed, or an article of clothing. Then we also suggest getting the word out by flyers and yard signs. We suggest going door to door, giving flyers to everyone in the area. Having a picture and a phone number on that flyer is huge. All over the neighborhood. Then we say contact your local animal shelters and animal control facilities, vet clinics in your area, and definitely report your missing dog to the police department. We recommend if you can either email them or bring over flyer a flyer of the, of your dog too. So they have picture, very important. We say instruct everyone that's helping you not to call or chase your dog. When a dog's been missing for a while, they go into flight mode, fight or flight mode, and they won't even sometimes recognize an owner right away because they've been, out for a while and they're just trying to stay safe and get food. Just trying to cover their basic needs and they're not really paying attention to who it is. They're just. Taking off whenever anybody tries to pursue. So we instruct that anyone that is helping you and anyone in the area not call or chase a dog we recommend luring. So sitting down with treats waiting for the dog to come to you. And then obviously post to PetFBI.org, which is our sister organization that will. Get your dog registered and posted to Lost Dogs Illinois right away. They are our database and lost Dogs. Illinois is our Facebook page. We send tips and flyer templates ready for you guys to print, for anybody to print. So you don't have to worry about trying to make those up. They're ready. You send them to you, you just print them. But social media. Is huge. Next door is huge. Any of the local often found Facebook groups are very important. Not everyone's on social media. So the flyers are number one to get everyone in the area able to see your animal. Making your dog famous is what we say. Yeah. So those are really the five things. Yep.

So you said that you should always go to the shelter in person to go look for your animal

the stray holds, can be short. If your dog is not microchipped it could be three days for the stray hold. So we recommend you go in person. Definitely keep checking the website, but if you can go in person at least once every few days, you know it's really helpful.

Now, would this be true, even if your dog is microchipped, would you still go check the shelters?

If it were my dog, I would go still check their shelters. Microchips can be missed. It's not super common, but they can be missed. And especially as we talked about, they can migrate it's not 100%. And you may think your chip is registered and maybe it isn't, or, maybe the phone number was entered wrong or maybe the shelter overlooked the research. If it were my dog, yes, I would say definitely go every once, at least every once. Every three days or so just to, for peace of mind. At some point if your dog's missing a long time, that might not be something you can do. But definitely check the microchip. I mean that, that's on the list as well. I guess I skipped over that, but definitely when you're contacting animal shelters and all that, make sure you contact the chip company and report your dog is missing.

I agree with you too on that. And I find too that people don't understand that a lot of the times the shelter staff is also very busy. When an animal comes in, they may not be able to scan the animal right away, or they may quickly scan the animal, and if the chip has migrated, then you know, they may not actually detect the chip. I've heard of a couple of situations where the chips can actually go bad after a certain amount of time as well.

I've heard that, but I have not. Actually ever had evidence of that. So I cannot confirm or deny that. I have never heard someone say, my dog is chipped, but the chip didn't work. In nine years I have not come across that. So I can't confirm or deny that. But I will say that, sometimes animals have been, dogs are cats have been scanned in. When they come into the shelter and they've found no chip, but they also scan when leaving with a rescue and then the chip is detected. So again, chips can be missed. And I have definitely had that scenario happen. I wouldn't say often, but occasionally. So you know, don't always 100% rely on that microchip.

And I can see how that could happen too, because it is a frequency, so if it's a chip and the scanner doesn't have that particular frequency to detect it, then you know, it could just be a matter of the scanner that's being used as well.

It could be. I would hope that the facilities are using the scanners that can scan all the frequencies that are out there. They should be using the correct ones. But, there are things that interfere with scanning too, if you're around a lot of metal it, there are scenarios for sure.

Now when it comes to people finding dogs, what are the first steps they should take?

So similar we still always suggest flyers but we have our five things to do if you find a dog as well. If you go to our website, you could see that, but you just, obviously you check if the dog has an ID tag on, take the dog to the nearest shelter or veterinarian's office to scan for a microchip. Notify the police department animal control facilities to make sure that the owner hasn't reported the dog missing. Call the animal control agency to complete a found dog report or bring a flyer to them same as you would for a lost dog. Create lost or found dog flyers. Post them around the area. Very important 'cause not everybody, again, is on social media. And then again, post to our group pet fbi.org to, to get the dog. Registered and posted to Lost Dogs Illinois or whatever state the dog is missing from. And next door we always recommend, and the local lost and found Facebook groups. There's a lot of Facebook groups now for all different kinds of lost and found pets and there, a lot of local pages. So those can be super helpful. But again, not everyone's on social media, so the flyers are really important. So that's really those five things are what we recommend.

I know a lot of people tend to lose hope when they do lose a dog. So do you see an average amount of time with a reunification happening?

I wouldn't say there's an average amount of time. But we do tend to, the more you make your dog famous, the more likely. The dog will get home, as quickly as possible. We have cases of dogs missing for, a couple hours to a couple of days, to a couple of years. There's really all kinds of scenarios. The microchip obviously is when they're gone for a longer period of time. That is really the key to getting your dog home.

Absolutely. And one thing that I did wanna end on too before we close out this conversation is that I know a lot of people, they're always, oh, I'm busy. I can't volunteer with a group. I'd love to help animals, but I can't help animals because I'm busy with work. But what you do with the Lost Dogs Illinois, and then the microchip help. That's all stuff that you can do. From home and so you could do it on your own. Absolutely. Time schedule, especially like with the Lost Dogs, any of the lost pets, you can go scour through the Lost Pets groups and just do what I call matching. You go look for photos of found pets and you compare 'em with lost pets, and a lot of the times that's how these pets are getting home. So do you have any concluding message for people and can you give us more information on how people can get involved with your groups?

Yeah, of course. If you're in Illinois Lost Dogs, Illinois is always looking for people to help our volunteers actually pick up shifts. So you can pick times that work for you. You can do hour, an hour, two hours, however many hours you wanna put in on a shift. And we have a calendar, our volunteers put themselves in those shifts. When you take those shifts, you cover incoming loss and found dogs. You message owners you send flyers to them, give tips what to do. So anybody really can do that because you can really make your own time, make your own schedule for when you're available. We, weekends, evenings, we work around your work. So very easy to do. And then as far as and to volunteer for Lost Dogs, Illinois, you just go on our website, we have an application form there. pet fbi.org Is our partner organization. They are our database. They have their Facebook pages for different states. So if you are in another state, you can go to pet fbi.org and sign in volunteer application There. And then for microchip help.com, if you go to our website, it's near the bottom. There is also a form to volunteer with us. It's a little different as far as time commitment because when you pick up a case, you're not gonna know whether you're gonna reach an owner in five minutes or you're gonna be working on trying to find family members or some connections to other people. You could be working on it for days. I hate to say that, but it happens very often where you don't hear back from anyone and you're just trying and trying. We don't give up. So we do spend a lot of time. That's a little different scenario. But again, when you pick up a case, you pick up a case when you have time. There are definitely ways to get involved. As you said, the matchmaking that isn't an actual position that we have. But we have a lot of fans that go to our page and kind of do that stuff on their own. Then they comment on our posts and they've matched many dogs that way. Whatever your level of commitment is It all helps for a team takes a village to get these animals home and any help is always appreciated.

Thank you for the work that you do and I, like I said, I can definitely attest that it works because you did get a cat home.

Thank you. And we loved helping.

Thank you so much, Jeanette, for speaking with me today. I truly appreciate it.

You're welcome. Thank you so much.

Now, before we end this episode I just wanted to go over some of the tips if you lost an indoor cat. We covered some of the tips for dogs, so I just quickly wanted to go over some things that would be pertinent for cats. And the reason I say indoor only is because if it's an indoor outdoor cat, it changes things a bit because your cat is outside already. So for an indoor outdoor cat, your cat may have been trapped. Your cat may have accidentally hitched a ride with somebody and ended up somewhere else. So the first tip specifically is gonna be for indoor only cats, and that has a lot to do with scent. A lot of people will tend to put a scent item outside, like dirty towels or dirty clothes some stinky cat food, like tuna or something that your cat really likes, and Those scent items that you would put outside definitely are gonna help. But with an indoor cat, your indoor cat is most likely hiding really close by. So I find that the best thing to do is actually just lock up any other pets that you may have. Open the door, put your scent item right by your door, and most of the time your cat is gonna run back in. And then of course, you'd wanna follow through with the other things that Jeanette suggested as well, like calling the shelter, doing your flyers, not chasing your cat because your cat is gonna be terrified even though this might be the sweetest cat inside. If you're outside, your cat is not knowing what's going on, and your cat's still gonna be scared of you, so you wanna just lay low and let the cat come to you. Don't try to go grab your cat, you may have to use a humane trap. I do find that works most of the time. 'cause your cat will get hungry, you put it really close to your house wherever you have someplace that they could be hiding, like some bushes or something like that. and if you follow those tips, most of the time you can get your indoor cat home. But I'm gonna say opening that door, that's a thing that seems to work the best. So thanks everybody for listening and we'll catch you next week. Bye. If you are enjoying our show, please consider leaving us a donation. A hundred percent goes to our animals.

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