Ohio's Pet FBI Goes National: Needs Volunteers

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Aug. 22, 2014 - PRLog -- PetFBI.org, or Pets Found By Internet, has been crowdsourcing since before "crowdsourcing" became a thing. For more than fifteen years, Pet FBI has provided the public with one central online place to connect and reunite lost and found pets with their families. And it has just expanded its services beyond Ohio to include all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. So now, if Fluffy the cat hitches a ride in a neighbor's moving van, Fluffy can still reconnect with home even across state lines.

Pet FBI is the preeminent resource for lost and found pets of all kinds because the organization is 100% volunteer operated, meaning the database is 100% free.  Reports in the database are easily searchable and kept for at least 5 years so posts never get "buried" by newer reports. It's free to post, make a custom flyer, and get in contact with other resources.

Plus, Pet FBI also has a dedicated legion of friends and fans who regularly contact owners and post to their Pet FBI - Ohio Facebook page with sightings of missing pets, tips on what works best, and offers to help search.

According to founder Maresa Fanelli, approximately 35% of dogs and 25% of cats listed on Pet FBI are reported as reunited, and she suspects that the success rate is actually higher because people simply delete or don't update their reports. As of January, 2014, the database had more than 41,000 reports from Ohio alone.

Volunteers Needed

With the expansion of Pet FBI's database to a national level, comes the need for more help. Pet FBI is also working to expand their state-specific social media pages and other programs that help prevent missing pets in the first place. If you would like to volunteer, visit http://petfbi.org/.

Started in 1998 and based in Columbus, Ohio, Pet FBI is one of the United States' first online databases dedicated to helping worried pet owners and good Samaritans connect. To date they have helped dogs, cats, birds, ferrets, goats, reptiles, and even bulls find their way home.  Pet FBI a non-profit 501(c)3 organization run entirely on donations.