The Cost of Preventable Losses

We all feel it.

The Cost of Preventable Losses

When you lose a dog or cat, the biggest cost is to the lost cat or dog.  A stray pet can be subjected to enormous risks.  Even if you have had a lost pet returned to you, safe and sound, unharmed, your cat or dog was exposed to unnecessary risks.  If your pet is missing, there is a cost to you, personally.  You worry, you can’t sleep, and you miss work, probably.  If your cat or dog never comes home, for many people it is like the loss of a child.  If one of my dogs never came home, it would definitely impact me like the loss of a child.  For your pet’s sake and for your own sake, you should take any and all loss prevention measures that you can.  I have written guides for loss prevention, and I hope you will read them and share them for the sake of your pet and for your own sake.

When a cat or dog goes missing, there is a cost to the community.  Lost pets cost society at large, and local shelters have budgets in the millions of dollars, just for lost pets.  Almost all of the cats and dogs in the shelter every day could just go home, and not need shelter services, if only they had ID tags and microchips.  Microchips are often supplied for free, but if you get one from your vet, I believe the cost is less than $40.  Something so cheap and maintenance-free, a tiny little microchip, could save this nation billions of dollars, not to mention the benefits to the millions of pets that could go home right away.

Besides the cost to society at large, there is a community of pet lovers who work hard every day to help lost cats and dogs.  We help because we love cats and dogs, and because if we know of a stray pet, we can’t not help.  For many people, we can’t rest if we know of a cat or dog in danger, and know we could be helping.  Personally, I have picked up dozens of deceased pets.  This comes at a cost to me, and others like me, that have to encounter such horrible scenes.  I can’t unsee some of the things I’ve seen.  I try to not let it get to me, but these images are in my mind.

One person in particular helps more lost dogs than anyone I know.  Lily Burns spends all day, every day, every single day of the year, helping reunite lost dogs through the Facebook group Lost Dogs of King County.  She does this for free.  She does this work because—I’m just guessing here, based on my own experience—because she can’t not help.  She loves her two dogs more than life itself, I think it’s safe to say.  If her dogs were missing, she would want the community’s help in getting them back safe and fast.  Lily’s advice and guidance have helped thousands of dogs get back home in the Greater Seattle area.

In the years that Lily has been moderating the LDKC group, there have always been deceased dogs now and then.  Lately, in 2022, there are days when as many as 4 dogs are found dead in a single day.  I know I feel it when each of these dogs dies, and I’m sure Lily is impacted as well.  The ones that really hurt are the dogs that we have helped find in the past, and they escape again, and the dog is hit by a car and killed.  These are dogs that the owners should know how to keep safe.  They are aware that dogs can go missing, because they experienced it first hand.  The LDKC group always makes loss prevention information available, and Lily and the other moderators almost always give people advice on how to prevent the dog from escaping in the future.  I will just say from my own perspective, and I’m sure Lily feels this way too, that if you put your heart and soul into rescuing a dog, getting her safe, and you give advice to keep that dog safe, and the advice is not followed, and the dog dies, it hurts.  It can feel like losing your own dog.

I hope owners of cats and dogs would keep their pets safe for the sake of the pets, first and foremost.  For their own sakes, pet owners should take these simple loss prevention measures to protect their own emotional well-being.  Losing a pet can cost a significant amount in lost work and possibly vet bills.  Any time or money you spend on loss prevention will definitely save you time and money in the long run.  Simple and cheap loss prevention measures would save American taxpayers billions of dollars each year.  So for all of those reasons, please learn and practice these proven loss prevention measures.  I would say that you also have a moral obligation to people like Lily and me.  We should not have to pick up your dead dog from the freeway.  We should not have to read that Facebook post saying that your dog was hit and killed after we worked so hard to keep them safe, after we supplied you with all of the information you need to keep the chance of loss to a minimum.  Perhaps that moral obligation won’t be the main motivation for you to keep your pets safe, but it ought to be enough.  I don’t think Lily can keep doing this job, this unpaid work, indefinitely, if she has to suffer the needless loss of dogs that she worked so hard to help.  If we lose Lily as a resource, it would be a great loss to the community.  A preventable loss.  Please keep your dogs and cats safe, for so many reasons.

Loss prevention for dogs.

Loss prevention for cats.

Lily Burns is a volunteer who does not expect to be paid. Many people ask how they can chip in a little something to say thank you to Lily and to help her with expenses. Although Lost Dogs of King County is not a registered charity, if you would like to help out Lily, you can send a donation to her directly through Venmo to @Lily_Burns.