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Preventive Veterinary Medicine 101 (2011) 265– 269

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Preventive Veterinary Medicine

j ourna l ho me pag e: ww w.elsev i er .com/ locate /prev etmed

hort communication

etention of provided identification for dogs and cats seen ineterinary clinics and adopted from shelters in Oklahoma City, OK, USA

mily Weissa,1, Margaret R. Slaterb,∗, Linda K. Lordc,2

Shelter Research and Development, Community Outreach, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 2672 SW Indianola, Benton, KS 67017,nited StatesShelter Research and Development, Community Outreach, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 1717 South Philo Road, Urbana, IL1802, United StatesDepartment of Veterinary Preventive Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, United States

r t i c l e i n f o

rticle history:eceived 16 February 2011eceived in revised form 12 May 2011ccepted 14 May 2011

eywords:ollar

dentification tagost catost dogtray cat–stray dog

a b s t r a c t

Personalized identification (ID) tags that contain contact information for the dog or catowner can help assure lost animals are quickly reunited with their owners. The authorshave previously reported that while the majority of pet owners stated that ID tags werevery important, only a third responded that their pet wears an ID tag. The objective of thisstudy was to evaluate if providing and putting on the pet a free collar and ID tag during anowner’s visit to a veterinary hospital or spay/neuter facility increased the likelihood thatthe pet owners would actually keep the identification on their pet at least 6–8 weeks afterthey were placed on the pet. A second population of dogs and cats that were adopted fromanimal control and humane society shelters were also studied to assess retention of a collarand personalized ID tag. Telephone follow-up occurred a mean of 8 weeks after the tagwas applied. Retaining and using the tag significantly increased for the veterinary groupwith 13.8% reporting their pets were currently wearing an ID tag pre-intervention, and84.3% reporting their pets were currently wearing and ID tag post-intervention. Of the dogsand cats that were adopted, at follow-up 94% of owners reported their pets were currentlywearing an ID tag. Approximately 5% of those who participated in the post-intervention

survey lost a pet and recovered that pet because of the ID tag. This suggests that ID taggingis an effective method to potentially decrease stray intake into shelters and return petshome. The data also support placing tags and collars directly on pets as a method to retainthose ID tags and collars on the animals, thus increasing the likelihood they will be returnedhome if lost or during a disaster.

. Introduction

While statistics vary from community to communitynd country to country, stray animals are often 40–60% ofotal animal intake for shelters that admit strays (Weiss,

∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 217 337 9769; fax: +1 217 337 9769.E-mail addresses: emilyw@aspca.org (E. Weiss),

argaretslater@aspca.org (M.R. Slater), lord.19@osu.edu (L.K. Lord).1 Tel.: +1 316 778 1273; fax: +1 316 221 1031.2 Tel.: +1 614 247 6635; fax: +1 614 292 4142.

167-5877/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.oi:10.1016/j.prevetmed.2011.05.008

© 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

personal communication, December 20, 2010) in the USand an even higher proportion in urban Australia (Marstonet al., 2004). In shelters, return to owner rates are reportedto be between 10% and 30% for dogs in the US and about40% in Australia (Marston et al., 2004) and less than 5% forcats in the US (Humane Society of the United States, 2009).This disparity between stray intake and animals returned

to their owners likely results in pets not finding their wayhome.

Lord (Lord et al., 2007c) found that finders of lostpets overwhelmingly (87% of finders) “considered it

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266 E. Weiss et al. / Preventive Vet

extremely important to find the owner.” However, Lord’sstudy reported that just 38% of the found pets werereunited with their owners, with dogs much morelikely to be reunited (46%) than cats (3%) (Lord et al.,2007c).

The use of personalized identification (ID) tags withthe name and phone number of the owner may be animportant way to increase the number of pets that getreturned home. One publication found that only 48% ofdogs that were lost had any identification (Lord et al.,2007b), while the situation was worse for cats, with only19% of cats having a form of identification at the time theywere lost (Lord et al., 2007a). The use of microchips canbe an excellent secondary means of identification for pets.This is particularly true for pets that are likely to lose theircollars or where collar use may be hazardous. However,only facilities with microchip readers can identify the petowner. This makes visible identification a crucial primarymethod.

The authors have found (Slater et al., 2011) that while80% of pet owners report that they believe it is very orextremely important for animals to wear ID tags, only 33%of that population report always having tags on their pets.The objective of this study was to evaluate if providing andputting on the pet a free collar and personalized ID tag dur-ing an owner’s visit to a veterinary hospital or spay/neuterfacility or at the time of adoption from an animal shelterincreased the likelihood that the pet owner would actuallykeep the identification on their pet.

2. Materials and methods

2.1. Site selection

Oklahoma City, OK, USA was selected because it waspart of the American Society for the Prevention of Cru-elty to Animals (ASPCA) Partner Community program andidentification of pets for return to owner was a programpriority. The ASPCA Partnership is a collaboration betweenthe ASPCA and a community to increase the live releaserate, saving the animals most at risk through sustainabledata-driven plans and programs.

2.2. Study subject selection

Spay/neuter (S/N) facilities and veterinary hospitals(collectively referred to as clinics) were identified for inclu-sion by their willingness to participate in the study andtheir proximity to each other for study simplicity. Eachclinic was provided an ID tagging machine for the studyperiod along with a supply of collars and tags.

Current dog or cat owners visiting the clinic in thestudy city between mid-November and mid-December2009 were recruited for the study. Clients with very sickor injured pets were excluded from the study. The recep-tionist at each clinic handed the pre-intervention survey tothe client as they waited to visit with the veterinarian, or

drop their pet off for surgery (in the case of the S/N facility).Except for a question about the number of other pets in thehousehold, the attitudes and behaviors applied to the petcurrently at the clinic.

edicine 101 (2011) 265– 269

In addition to the clinics, two Oklahoma City animalshelters (one funded by the government, one privatelyfunded) which were part of the ASPCA Partnership pro-gram were invited to participate in the study. The shelterstaff was asked to obtain permission from new dog andcat owners to contact them to do an interview followingtheir adoption visit. This intervention occurred within thesame general timeframe as the intervention conducted inthe clinics. If people adopted more than one animal, theanimal’s name earliest in the alphabet was used to selectone for participation.

2.3. Pre-intervention survey

The pre-intervention survey conducted at the clinics(shelter adopters did not complete this survey) includedowner attitudes about collars and identification and theiruse of collars, ID, rabies tags and microchips. Owners werealso asked if they would participate in a post-interventiontelephone questionnaire in 4–6 weeks and to provide aname and telephone number if so. No other identifyinginformation except for the pet’s name was recorded. Inaddition, the owners were asked if they would like a collarand personalized identification tag if the pet did not alreadyhave one. All questions were multiple-choice.

Owners were asked if any of their pets had been lostand returned due to identification and if the contact infor-mation on the ID tag was current. Demographic questionsabout the pet’s duration of living in the household, numberof other pets, presence of children under 18 in the house-hold and household income were included.

At the post-intervention telephone interview (con-ducted for both owners from clinics and adopters fromshelters), the same questions about importance, actualwearing of identification and animals getting lost wereasked. In addition, questions were asked about other petsin the household wearing identification, times when thetag was removed and whether the tag they received fromus initially was still being worn. General questions wereasked about how the ID tag had been working or if the tagwas lost.

Telephone interviews were performed by The HumaneResearch Council (PO Box 6476, Olympia, WA, USA). Up tothree attempts were made to contact each owner beforeconsidering that owner a non-respondent.

2.4. Provision of personalized identification(intervention)

For owners recruited from the hospital, when theyentered the examination room the veterinary techniciantook the pre-intervention survey and asked the client ifthey would like to receive a free personalized ID tag, and acollar (the latter was offered only if the pet was not alreadywearing a collar). At the S/N facility this occurred duringthe intake process for the pet. Tags, and collars if needed,were placed directly on the pet by the veterinary technician

or S/N facility staff (for the S/N population, collars and tagswere most often placed on the pets post surgery). Staff wastrained to place the collars, and how to make and placethe tags. For adopted pets’ owners, collars and tags were

E. Weiss et al. / Preventive Veterinary Medicine 101 (2011) 265– 269 267

Table 1Identification tag retention and owner attitudes pre- and post-intervention (provision of collar and ID tag) for 109 dog and cat owners visiting veterinaryhospitals (81) and S/N facilities (28) in Oklahoma City, OK, USA.

Question Dog pre-intervention

Dog post-intervention

Cat pre-intervention

Cat post-intervention

Total pre-intervention

Total post-intervention

P-value totalpre vs post

How often does your pet normally wear anID tag or microchip

<0.001

Always 29 (33.3) 61 (70.1) 2 (9.5) 18 (85.7) 31 (28.7) 79 (73.2)Usually 11 (12.6) 10 (11.5) 1 (4.8) 1 (4.8) 12 (11.1) 11 (10.2)Sometimes 10 (11.5) 7 (8.1) 1 (4.8) 0 11 (10.2) 7 (6.5)Rarely 11 (12.6) 1 (1.2) 3 (14.3) 1 (4.8) 14 (13.0) 2 (1.9)Never 26 (30.0) 8 (9.2) 14 (66.7) 1 (4.8) 40 (37.0) 9 (8.3)Totala 87 87 21 21 108 108

Is your pet currently wearing a collar and/ordoes he/she have identification? (yes outof total responses)Collar 65 (73.9) 72 (81.8) 4 (19.1) 19 (90.5) 69 (63.3) 91 (84.3) 0.002Identification tag 14 (15.9) 72 (81.8) 1 (4.8) 19 (90.5) 15 (13.8) 91 (84.3) <0.001Rabies tag 19 (21.6) 49 (55.7) 1 (4.8) 12 (57.1) 20 (18.4) 61 (56.5) <0.001Microchip 5 (5.7) 5 (6.0) 1 (4.8) 1 (4.2) 4 (3.7) 6 (5.6) 0.5

How important do you think it is for animalsto wear identification at all times?

0.01

Extremely 45 (51.8) 43 (48.9) 7 (33.3) 7 (33.3) 52 (48.2) 50 (45.9)Very 24 (27.8) 37 (42.1) 6 (28.6) 12 (57.1) 30 (27.8) 49 (45.0)Somewhat 15 (18.4) 8 (9.1) 6 (28.6) 2 (9.5) 22 (20.4) 10 (9.2)Not very 2 (2.3) 0 2 (9.5) 0 4 (3.8) 0Not at all 0 0 0 0 0 0Total 87 88 21 21 108 109

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ade and placed on the pets at the time of adoption byhelter staff. ID tags were made using portable IMARCTM

ag machines which engraved the owner’s information intohe metal tag. Collars were standard nylon buckle collars of

variety of sizes and colors.

.5. Statistical analysis

Data from all categorical answer questions were sum-arized using frequency and percentages. To compare

re- and post-intervention data, the McNemar’s chi-square2 × 2 tables) or symmetry tests (larger tables) were used.

< 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Standardtatistical software was used for all analyses (Stata 11.1,tataCorp LP, College Station, TX, USA).

. Results

There were 291 participants pre-intervention at thelinics. There were 43 owners who did not give permis-ion for a post-intervention interview, 109 who completedost-intervention interviews and 139 owners who wereot reached (109/248, 44% response rate). The mean inter-al between pre- and post-intervention surveys was 8eeks (range 5–10 weeks). Of the 109 responders, one

eported that the animal died and two reported no longerwning the pet. Of owners seen at the clinics, data wereissing on whether or not they took the collar and tag

or four owners and the remaining 255 of 291 (89%) took

collar and ID tag. No significant differences were foundetween non-responders and responders for comparisonsn species owned, length of pet ownership, number ofhildren under 18 in the household, annual income, impor-

tance of wearing identification and actual wearing ofidentification (data not shown). At the two animal shelters,there were 206 new adopters who gave permission for thefollow-up and 84 completed post-intervention interviews(41% response rate).

3.1. Perceived importance of tagging

The perceived importance of tagging was measured pre-and post-intervention. Overall for all pets seen at the veteri-nary clinics, there were statistically significant associationsbetween baseline and post-intervention on the impor-tance of wearing identification (P = 0.01) and on how oftendoes the animal normally wears identification (P < 0.001)(Table 1).

3.2. ID Tag use

The post-intervention survey showed a significantincrease in both personal ID tag and rabies tag use forboth dogs and cats when compared to baseline (Table 1).The reported frequency of tag use post-intervention foradopted pets was even higher than those of the pets fromthe veterinary clinics, with 94% of adopters (79 out of 84)contacted reported that their adopted pet always wears anID tag and collar. The vast majority (155, 91.2%) of respon-dents to the post-intervention survey indicated their petwas wearing the tag given out during the intervention andof those 155 owners, 125 (89.9%) answered the tag was

working fine.

There were 17 respondents whose pets were not cur-rently wearing an ID tag. The most common reason wasbecause the pet was primarily indoors or indoor only (seven

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268 E. Weiss et al. / Preventive Vet

owners) followed by problems with collar fit or comfort(five owners) and lost the collar or tag (two owners) andone each outdoor only cat and “we live in the country”. Allbut two owners still had the tags they were given, the othertwo lost the tag. Eighteen animals in this study becamelost from the home after they received the collar and IDtag (an additional three pets in these households but notin the study were also lost). Of these 18, 17 were recov-ered (13 dogs and four cats), 10 with the assistance of thetag (the finder called the phone number for nine dogs andone cat).

4. Discussion

Placing collars with personalized ID tags on dogs andcats resulted in a significant increase in tag use on follow-up (mean of 8 weeks post-intervention) when comparedto baseline. We hypothesize that the success of the ID tagintervention was at least partially tied to the strong positiveattitude about the importance of having ID tags on petsidentified at baseline (Slater et al., 2011).

The intervention influenced action more than attitudeby providing a simple way to obtain and place a tagon the pet. Post-intervention attitude regarding taggingdemonstrated an improvement by increasing to 90.9% thenumber pet owners reporting that wearing ID was very orextremely important, with the largest shift in attitude from“somewhat” to “very.”

The increase in reports of currently wearing an ID taguse pre- and, on average, 8 weeks post-intervention wasample (from 15.9% to 84.3%). The current interventioninvolved placing the tag directly onto the pet’s collar forthe pet owner. We suspect that placing the tag directly onthe pet is also an important factor in the high success rate.Further research will be needed to assess the effectivenessof an ID tagging program that provides the owner withthe tag as opposed to placing it directly on the pet. Post-intervention, 81.8% of dog owners reporting their pet wascurrently wearing ID and 90.5% of cat owners reporting thesame. When asked how often does your pet normally wearand ID tag, the total from the clinic group that reported“always” was 73.2%. The retention of ID tag use by the shel-ter group was even higher than for owners that had theintervention at a clinic.

In a study where animals adopted from a humane soci-ety were given a tag at the time of adoption but the tagwas not placed on a collar, 90.4% of dogs and 38.2% ofcats were wearing a collar and at least one form of tag1 month after adoption (Lord et al., 2008). We hypothe-size the reason for high ID tag use in our study is that theadopted pet’s behaviors are all new to the adopter, andthe collar and tag are simply part of the new pet that theyadopted.

Approximately 5% of dogs and cats were lost and morethan 50% (10/18) were recovered because of the ID tag.This suggests that ID tagging is an effective method topotentially decrease stray intake into shelters as animals

are recovered within the community and never enter thesheltering system.

Non-response bias is a concern in this type of study.Since the respondents from the veterinary hospitals and

edicine 101 (2011) 265– 269

spay/neuter facilities were similar in measured demo-graphic variables, the likelihood of substantial bias wasdecreased. However, it is possible that owners who stillhad ID tags were more likely to respond than ownerswho did not still have tags which would overestimate oursuccess. A limitation of this study was the inclusion ofonly some of the veterinary clinics in a single city mak-ing the generalizability of this study unclear. However,none of the demographic data were associated with theimportance of wearing identification at all times whichmay indicate that perceptions and behavior are based onfactors unrelated to location or veterinary clinic choice.The follow-up time was short, which is another limita-tion. However, we selected this shorter period to improveour ability to follow-up owners. We instructed the staffat the clinics to include all owners and pets (except forseriously ill or injured animals), but we were not able toassess staff compliance or what constituted an exceptionfor each staff member or facility nor number of ownerswho refused to participate. However, our objective was toconduct this work in a real world setting where our futurework would be applied, which improves the external valid-ity of our findings. These limitations make it impossibleto know how representative these results are of pet own-ers.

5. Conclusion

ID tags can help quickly reunite pets with their owners.While the majority of pet owners think personalized ID tagsare important, the minority actually have tags on their pets.Placing personalized ID tags (and collars if needed) directlyonto pets results in retention of the tag for at least 8 weekspost-intervention for the majority of pets. Retention is evenhigher for adopted pets leaving shelters with the adopter’sinformation on the tag.

The results of this study provide support for efforts toincrease the frequency of pet ID tag wearing by simply plac-ing a properly fitted collar and tag on pets at veterinaryclinics and adoption locations.

Acknowledgements

We thank the staff and adopters from the OklahomaCity Animal Welfare Division and the Central OklahomaHumane Society as well as the staff and clients at Pet HealthPlus Veterinary Clinic, Rock Knoll Veterinary Hospital, Awe-some Care Veterinary Clinic, and Southside Dog, Cat andBird. This project was funded internally by the ASPCA.

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