Why I would never recommend PawBoost.

Unethical and ineffective.

Why I would never recommend PawBoost

PawBoost is a for-profit company that supposedly helps people find their lost cats and dogs.  If they were ethical and effective, I would be okay with them charging for their services.  If they were ethical and effective, I would recommend them to people.

Probably most people don’t know or remember how PawBoost got started on Craigslist.  They built their market share by relentlessly spamming the Craigslist lost pets section.  This used to be the main forum where people posted their lost pets before Facebook became the main way people find their pets.  The rules of Craigslist were very clear that no one was allowed to post their services in the lost pets section.  You could post your business offers in the section set aside  for that purpose.  Every day, many times a day, PawBoost posted spam about their services, in the Lost & Found section where it’s not allowed.  Craigslist was not well-moderated at the time.  Even if you flagged every single instance of PawBoost spam, half of it stayed up.  It was just flagrant how they broke the rules for years.  They seem to have finally stopped doing that on Craigslist, after years of breaking the rules, but that doesn’t make it right.  I assume they didn’t stop because they suddenly became ethical.  They stopped spamming craigslist because they have other ways of publicizing themselves and gaining market share.

The way PawBoost gains market share these days is that they post pictures of lost pets on Facebook, and the picture is modified to include the PawBoost name.  Each posted picture gets shared all over Facebook, for the sake of helping the lost pet, but the PawBoost name gets shared everywhere as well.  What PawBoost never does is to share posts from other lost pet groups.  You only get your pet shared if you start with the PawBoost website.  If PawBoost would share posts from other groups, it would help those other pets get home.  They only ever promote PawBoost posts.  One huge downside of this is that in many communities, PawBoost is by far the dominant page for posting lost and found pets.  This effectively stops grassroots organizations from growing in those areas.  When a PawBoost page has thousands of followers in a small market, if you would like to start a community group to help lost pets, you are going to have a hard time getting people to join.  PawBoost will never share your posts.

In 2014, I founded Lost Dogs of King County, a public group of 27,000 members in the Seattle area dedicated to finding lost dogs, at no charge to the dog’s owner.  We help reunite at least 400 dogs every month. Things we do in this group that PawBoost never does:

1. Our moderators offer advice tailored to the specific situation of the lost dog.  Not all lost dogs should be treated the same, and you need to take different approaches based on the personality type, the location, the weather, and other factors.  Our moderators know the best ways to find lost dogs, and we steer the dog owner toward the best actions.  We have a webpage with resources to tell people the correct and best methods of finding a lost dog.

2. Our moderators and other users have a vast and deep familiarity of other groups and resources, and we can actively search in the right online forums for clues as to where your dog went.  In fact, many of the PawBoost postings end up being found because of LDKC. If anyone at PawBoost is actively working on making matches, it is not apparent to me.  It seems to based on posting only, no behind the scenes sleuthing.

3. If it will help find the dog, we will share posts from other groups, even groups that would seem to be our competition.  Our main goal is to help the dog get to safety.  PawBoost posts are shared on our page and they don’t get deleted, even if they aren’t the most effective.  PawBoost would never share one of our posts if it would help the dog get home.

4. The advice we give in our group is the correct advice, the best advice, based on years of experience and training.  PawBoost does not emphasize giving the dog owner proper advice.  Down at the very bottom of their page, they have links to articles about finding pets.  Some of the advice is correct.  Some of the advice is wrong, and can actually reduce the chances of finding your lost pet.  For this reason alone, I would never recommend PawBoost.

I happen to think that the Lost Dogs of King County Facebook group is the best of its kind, anywhere.  There are other lost pets groups that are not as effective or aren’t managed well or don’t always offer the best advice.  Still, almost all of them are better than PawBoost.  Where PawBoost has established a dominant presence, these  community groups are blocked from growing to the size where they can be effective.  PawBoost has strategically named their various Facebook pages in order to preempt other groups.  If you have lost you dog in Seattle, it would make sense that you would type in “Lost Dog Seattle” in Facebook’s search bar.  The first hit is the PawBoost page.  Rather than have one PawBoost page for the entire country, because it is all one company, they have all these regional pages for the purpose of intercepting traffic and keeping it from local community groups.  While that isn’t illegal, they don’t do this because it’s in the best interests of the lost dogs.  They take this approach because it’s in the best interests of PawBoost.

When you look at the local PawBoost page, you might think they are providing a great service to find lost pets, and they seem like a community organization.  You might also think they are effective because so many of their post are updated to say the pet was found.  What they don’t tell you is how the pet was found.  It may have nothing to do with the PawBoost post.  They still imply that they should get credit for the reunion.  In local lost pet groups, most of the time you will find out how and why the dog or cat is found.  This is helpful for future owners of lost pets.  It is helpful for the community of people who help find lost pets.  PawBoost hides this information so they can take credit for the reunification, and they rob the community of the valuable knowledge of how pets are found.

One telling feature of PawBoost, which you can check for yourself, is that at the bottom of their web page, they have a graphic about the press they have received.  The have a banner headline from the New York Times.  If the New York Times approves of PawBoost, they must be really great!  If you go to the New York Times and search for the article, using the title they have in their banner, you will find that the article is all about how social media is helping reunite lost pets, which I would definitely agree with.  The only thing it says about PawBoost is one sentence.  They say PawBoost is a company that exists.  The article says nothing more about PawBoost, or whether they are good or bad.  This seems emblematic of PawBoost, that they hope you would not look into the details too closely. They want you just to accept that they are great and their service really works.

If PawBoost didn’t exist, plenty of other groups and organizations would fill the need of helping people find their lost pets.  Their main goal, and seemingly their only goal, is to dominate market share and drive traffic to their paid services.  If PawBoost didn’t exist, I don’t think pets would be reunited with their families at a lower rate.  What they do isn’t illegal, but many of their actions are unethical.  And we have no way of knowing if their services are even effective at all.  I suspect that in most cases, using PawBoost is a waste of time and money.  Certainly in the Western Washington area, you would be better off posting about your lost pet anywhere but PawBoost.