As a pet owner, I know how scary it can be when a four-legged friend goes missing.
This is especially common around the Fourth of July, when fireworks and loud noises can scare pets and cause them to run away. While microchipping is a great way to increase the chances of finding a lost pet, it doesn’t always guarantee a quick reunion. That’s where Fido Alert comes in.
Fido Alert (for dogs) and Tabby Alert (for cats) are innovative pet collar tags that use QR codes
to help reunite lost pets with their owners. The tags are the brainchild of pet expert John Bradford
lover who wanted to create a more efficient way to find lost pets.
“Years ago, I wondered why there wasn’t a more instantaneous process for connecting pet owners with
“Lost pets?” Bradford said. That’s when he got the idea for the tags.
Here’s how it works: When you sign up for a Fido or Tabby tag, you enter important information
about your pet, including its name, breed, physical description and any identifying characteristics.
You can also add photos of the animal.
You then provide up to ten emergency contacts with their email address and phone number. If someone
If your pet is found, they can scan the QR code on the tag with their smartphone. It will send an SMS to your emergency contacts to notify them that your pet has been found.
“We collect their name and number (that of the person who finds them) and we send them by SMS to all ten people and to all
“I get an instant text message,” Bradford explained. “When you call that person, they say, ‘Yeah,
“I have your dog,” and you coordinate and go get the dog or cat.
One of the best things about Fido Alert is that it doesn’t require any special apps or software.
All you need is a smartphone with a QR code scanner.
Another feature of the Fido and Tabby Alert tags and network is a sort of “Amber Alert” for pets.
If someone loses their dog or cat, they can enter the information on the Fido Alert website
with the pet’s last known location. “What we do is we take that location and we go out 3 miles, and we send a text message to everybody in our network with a link that’s a flyer of your pet,” Bradford said. “That’s why it’s important to keep adding people to the network, because if you’re in the middle of Wichita, Kansas, we have people in Wichita that have signed up. But we don’t have everybody. So the idea is that the more people that are in the network, the more people will get a text message saying
“There is a dog on the loose.”
While Fido Alert tags are not a replacement for microchips, they offer a simpler and more secure solution.
an immediate way to communicate with people who find your lost pet.
“The challenge with microchipping,” Bradford says, “is that someone who sees a stray dog has to be
“They are willing to put this stray animal in their car and drive it to a vet or a shelter,” Bradford said.
With Fido Alert, the finder can scan the QR code and contact the pet owner directly. Bradford said his company isn’t trying to make a lot of money off of Fido and Tabby Alert
network and the company does not sell data to Chewy, PetCo or other pet stores. There is no
no monthly service fees either.
Registration is free and tags cost about $5. When I registered, another user had “paid”
“Let’s go” and offered to buy my tag. I only had to pay a little for shipping.
If you are looking for an extra layer of protection for your furry friend, I highly recommend
Discover Fido Alert. It’s a simple, affordable and effective way to increase your chances of
find your lost pet quickly and safely.
www.fidoalert.com
