New Lost Pets Resource in St Louis Missouri Area

Image: Animal Care Arlington

There's a new resource for folks who have lost their pets in the St Louis, Missouri area.  STL Lost Pets is a collaborative effort by the Animal Protective Association (APA), St Louis County Animal Care & Control, and the Humane Society of Missouri.

If you've lost a pet, you can search their comprehensive list of Found Dogs and Found Cats which include photographs.  You can also contact local shelters (exhaustive list of contacts provided) and submit a Lost Pet Report.

STL Lost Pets offers this advice for anyone looking for a lost pet:

• Start looking immediately.  Do not assume that your pet will "come back when he's ready."  Animal shelters are required to hold stray animals for only five days, after which they may be placed into a new home or humanely euthanized.  Don't give up!  Many pets are found after being missing for weeks or even months.
• Check with all neighbors within 4-6 blocks of your home.  Sometimes pets, especially cats, are found a short distance from where they live.
• Post signs in your neighborhood with a photo detailing your pet's color, size, breed, age, sex and any identification.  Offering a reward might speed your pet's return.
• Visit ALL animal shelters in your area as often as possible.  Animals might be picked up in one area, but taken to a shelter in a different place, so be sure to call and/or visit as many shelters as possible.

STL Lost Pets strongly encourages microchipping your pet and they even offer discounted microchipping services to pet owners.  

A study of more than 7,700 stray animals at animal shelters showed that dogs without microchips were returned to their owners 21.9% of the time, whereas microchipped dogs were returned to their owners 52.2% of the time.  Cats without microchips were reunited with their owners only 1.8% of the time, whereas microchipped cats went back home 38.5% of the time.

You can find out more about STL Lost Pets at their website www.stllostpets.org

 

Spring Fever: Spay and Neuter Your Pets

Rudy playing keep-away

I have spring fever. Yesterday our forsythia bushes promised a yellow blaze of glory for today and temperatures climbed to almost 80 degrees. We all heaved a sigh of relief that the long, unusually snowy and cold, winter seems to be coming to an end. Finally. It almost seems safe now to pack away the dog coats and boots.

All four canines spent most of the day outdoors. Tucker did quite a bit of sun bathing and blissful napping in the ever greening grass. Lucy enjoyed patrols with me as I checked flowers, shrubs and fruit trees. Jeffie and Rudy enjoyed jolly ball and frisbe games both with and without Gary and I. It was a beautiful spring day.

However, this morning I'm mindful that with spring comes the deluge of puppies and kittens at animal shelters. 

About one million puppies are born in Missouri each year according to the Humane Society of Missouri.  In fact, each day, 70,000 kittens and puppies are born in the United States.  Thousands of these end up unwanted, wandering the streets.  Many of them perpetuate the problem by breeding and having babies of their own.  Too many of them end up at animal shelters where they wait, hoping for a forever home.

At For Love of a Dog, all four of our dogs today are products of unintentional breeding.  Of course, I'm glad that they were born.  I can't imagine life without them.   However, from time to time, I wonder about their littermates.  I tend to doubt they all got so lucky.

So, in the midst of delicious spring fever, I'm thinking about spay and neuter.  Rudy will be heading to the vet next month for a bit of a snip to his boy parts.  None of our dogs will be contributing to the homelessness of another generation.

Spay and neuter your pets.  It's the responsible thing to do.