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Why National Pet ID Week Matters to Your Employees – and to You
A lost pet can wreak havoc on your employee’s life – and productivity. Support your employees by helping them protect their pets.
You may be shocked by this number.
Guess: How many pets go missing each year?
The answer is in the MILLIONS!
And sadly, many of those animals never return to their owners. But the good news is that it only takes a few simple steps for a pet parent to prevent their pet from becoming a statistic.
Why does this matter to you, as an employer?
Pets give stability and love to their families and help reduce stress. That’s always important, but with the added tensions of COVID-19, it’s now more crucial than ever.
Helping your employees protect their pets is another way to support them during tough times. During National Pet ID Week, you can educate your employees (and yourself!) about preventing the loss of a pet.
National Pet ID Week
National Pet ID Week always starts on April 17 and continues for seven days. It’s a time for pet owners to make sure they’re taking the right steps to protect their pets if they go missing.
And it’s all too likely that their pet WILL go missing someday. How likely?
There’s no formal reporting structure for animal shelters, so qualified data is hard to come by. But If you look around the web, you’ll see these accepted numbers attributed to the American Humane Association:
- One in three pets will be lost at some point in their life.
- Close to ten million pets are lost or stolen each year.
- Over 80% are never found.
According to the Lost Pet Research and Recovery, recent research, including a 2018 study, shows that the numbers are lower, but still distressing:
- At least 15% of cat owners lose their pet once in five years.
- At least 14 % of dog owners lose their pet once in five years.
- Up to 7% of dogs and 39% of cats are never found.
However, once an animal enters a shelter, the RTO (return to owner) rates plummet to less than 5% for cats and less than 16% for dogs. That’s likely because animal shelters only hold stray animals for 3-5 days before euthanizing them. MILLIONS of animals are euthanized at shelters each year.
How can you and your employees protect your pets?
Identification is the Key
The most important step you can take to recover your pet is to give your pet identification, such as collars or microchips.
A famous AVMA study of more than 7,700 stray animals at animal shelters found that:
Dogs with microchips were more than twice as likely to return to their owners.
Cats with microchips were 21x more likely to return to their owners!
Collars with tags are just as crucial. Anyone who finds a stray pet can read the tag and return the animal, avoiding a shelter completely.
Tags and microchips are only effective if the contact information is readable and up to date.
Indoor pets need identification, too! Studies found that about half of missing pets were indoor animals that escaped.
Cats and Collars
Did you notice that cats have a significantly lower RTO rate?
It’s probably due to several factors. For one thing, animal shelters have shorter hold times for cats than dogs. Cat owners also check shelters less frequently for their pet.
But the main reason seems to be that cats are much less likely to have an identification tag. Up to date identification is one of the keys to bringing a lost pet home.
56% of cats, but only 11% of dogs, had no ID when they went missing.
– Purring Pal
There’s a common myth that cats can’t wear collars. But a 2010 Journal of American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA) study found that 391 out of 538 subject cats were able to successfully wear their collars for more than six months.
Support Your Employees and Their Pets
National Pet ID Week is the perfect time to educate employees about identifying their pets.
Pet Assure can help with ThePetTag.
New for 2020, it’s now included FREE in Pet Assure memberships. Here’s how it works:
- Register Pets - All Pet Assure members can register their pets for ThePetTag service and order their free pet tags in their Pet Benefit Solutions account. If they already have pet tags, they can call customer service at (800) 891-2565 to switch to the new program and receive new tags.
- Attach a Tag – Attach ThePetTag to a pet’s collar. It’s important that ThePetTag is ALWAYS attached to the collar to identify the pet.
- A Pet is Found - If a pet goes missing, anyone who finds it can scan the tag with a smartphone to access emergency contact information.
ThePetTag helps pets return safe and sound to their homes.
For more information, call Pet Benefit Solutions at (888) 913-7387 or email us at info@petbenefits.com.
