Roughly half of the pets who enter shelters come in as stray, and many of these are in fact lost family pets. Those kept in the neighborhood where they’re found are more likely to make it home to their families—that is because most of those pets are less than a mile from their home. 

Thanks to new technologies, lost pets no longer need to be brought to a shelter if they are healthy and friendly, and with a little help from the pet finder, can be returned home within minutes or hours of getting lost.