10 Tips To Avoid Stealing Your Dog

It is known that there have always been cases of theft of dogs. In recent times, it is becoming known that there are gangs specialized in stealing dogs, especially known and sought-after breeds, whose sale is easy to carry out. There are also many cases of pet abductions. If you don’t want your dog stolen, follow these tips.

When they are stolen, the kidnappers see the owners stick up posters to find them and take the opportunity to ask for large sums of money to recover their furry friend.

Some tips to avoid stealing your dog

 Faced with these waves of dog theft, it is necessary to take precautionary measures. We will cite a few below:

• If your dog is in the backyard of the house, we have to make sure that there is no crack through which it can escape, or if there is a gate that faces the outside, that it does not pass between the bars.

• It is very positive to exercise with your dog so that it gets used to distrusting strangers. This way, you will not be bribed with snacks that you like a lot to eat, toys, etc. There are trainers specialized in this type of teaching.

• An identification plate is very useful in those cases where the animal is lost, stolen and escapes from thieves or has simply been lost.

• We never have to let our friend leave the house alone, even if it doesn’t take long and the way is well known. It is very important that you always go out accompanied, so we will avoid your theft.

• The leash that we use with our pet can be an excellent insurance. We should not take our dog for a walk without its leash, especially in the case of solitary places and at night.

• A bad habit is to leave our dog inside a car, either to buy, to do some seemingly quick management, etc. That may be the moment that many criminals take advantage of to steal your dog.

• Safety must be for our pet and for the owners. It is good to avoid dark alleys, narrow streets with little traffic, any area that looks suspicious. Although we believe that we carry all the protection in the world with our mastiff, this is not always the case.

• Not only purebreds attract criminals, also crossbreeds, some “mongrel” dogs are very attractive.

• If you have the possibility, you can implant a microchip with GPS in your pet. With this gadget you can track its location in case it is lost or stolen.

• We must not trust any stranger to accompany our dog alone to carry out any activity.

The microchip, high technology to locate our pets

The way to implant the microchip is subcutaneously, under the skin of the neck of the dog, cat or ferret. Thus, if the animal is lost, it is possible to read the data with a device similar to that used in stores to read barcodes. This system makes it easier to locate the owner of the pet.

In those cases of loss of the animal, and also in those of abandonment, the microchip is the best tool to locate the owners and get the pet to return home.

Sometimes, those who steal our dogs or ferrets have the ability to hide the microchip data so that the owners cannot locate their best friend.

Outside our borders, in the rest of Europe, there is also a database for the entire continent, Europetnet. This initiative consists of a group of associations that share the identification records of all companion animals that have a microchip. It is a unique registry, valid for all animals in the European Union. It is a place where all the data is centralized.

If our animal is lost in any country of the European Union, the microchip number can be entered on the Europetnet website to obtain a list of the entities where the pet has been since the moment of its loss.

With regard to the Spanish field, the Spanish Network for the Identification of Companion Animals (REIAC) is a data file with the codes of the microchips of all the Spanish autonomous communities. With this file, it is easier to locate a dog that is lost in a region other than the community where it lives. This way it is much easier to travel with your best friend.