National Conversation on Lost and Found Pet Registers

Everyone seems to agree that there is a problem; but what is the solution?

The problem is this:

there are too many lost and found pet registers of too widely varying quality and searchability and too little sharing of information between them.

Every single veterinary surgery in the country, every branch of the RSPCA and Cats Protection, most animal rescue centres large or small, many police stations, even some radio stations, have lost and found pet registers, usually in the form of a little red book under the counter, often written illegibly, difficult to search, and often with incomplete information.

There are online regional and national lost and found pet registers – many of them, of widely varying quality, especially in terms of searchability and security.

Of course, if every single pet in the country were microchipped and if everyone who found a pet knew to have it scanned for a microchip, there would be far less need for lost and found pet registers. But until that happens, lost and found registers can play an important role in reuniting missing pets with their owners. No doubt sometimes they do work. But almost no-one knows how well their own registers work. And surely they could work far, far better.

How can we collectively move forward? Some ideas...