A recent Inside Edition report warned pet owners about putting certain information on pet tags after two women said strangers tried to use their dog’s tag information to track them down.
Shay Grayson told Inside Edition that a stranger stopped her when she was walking her dog to ask if he could take a picture of the Maltese.
But he wasn’t taking a picture of the dog.
He was taking a picture of the dog’s tags.
“I noticed that he was actually holding up her dog collar and the dog tag, and then I realized he was actually taking a picture of my address, which was on the dog tag, not on my dog,” Greyson said.
Once she realized what he was doing, she ran after him to force him to delete the photos.
“My home could be broken into. Or whenever I took my dog out one day, he could be out there to either kidnap my dog or to do something to me. There were so many things that could happen with him having my address,” Greyson said.
Michelle Kimball had a similar experience but she didn’t realize her information was being pilfered during the act.
She didn’t realize what happened until she got a phone call from a stranger.
“I was thinking in my head, I said, ‘I don’t know anybody by that name? How did you get my phone number?’ He said, ‘Oh, I got it off your dog’s collar,’” Kimball said.
Apparently, he asked to pet her German Shepherd Nilla when they went out for a walk and he took a photo of her phone number on her dog’s collar.
“Why would anybody think that’s okay, just to get my phone number from my dog’s collar? That’s in case my dog gets lost,” Kimball said.
And these women are the only ones this has happened to.
“That’s exactly how my obsessive ex-husband found out where I was living after our nasty divorce. My mom took care of my dog while I was at work, and she would let her out in the fenced yard for a little while every day,” one person commented on YouTube.”
“Apparently, he had someone knock at the door to distract my mom while he ran to the fence and took a picture of my dog’s tag. That night, he jumped the gate (at my GATED community), and showed up at my front door. SCARY!”
Safety expert Barb Jordan says that dog parks are an easy place for someone to swipe your info because people are usually friendly and have their guards down.
“We never think that people are going to be using our dogs to get close to us. But predators, they have no limits. They have no boundaries,” Jordan said.
She says that you should only put your phone number on your pet’s collar tags.
Having your pet microchipped is also a way to keep your information safe.
That way your contact information is only accessible when the chip is scanned at a veterinarian’s office.
The PetHealthNetwork says you might want to leave your pet’s name off of the tag as well.
That’s so someone can’t call your animal if they intend to dog or catnap them.
You might want to acknowledge that the dog is microchipped on their collar tag.
You can also check with your veterinarian to see what the best option for you and your pet is.
Learn more on pet collar tag safety in the video below.
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