New partnership: "Finding Rover" app could help reunite lost dogs with their owners

MILWAUKEE -- The Wisconsin Humane Society (WHS) and Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission (MADACC) are teaming up to hopefully make it easier to reunite lost dogs with their owners. It's all part of a new partnership with "Finding Rover" and its app.

Officials describe Finding Rover as a free social media based app that uses facial recognition to help reunite lost dogs with their owners. It also is supposed to enable people to view stray animals in care at MADACC in Milwaukee and WHS in Racine and Ozaukee Counties.

A news release indicates that Finding Rover receives data on the lost dogs MADACC and WHS intake as strays or abandoned animals, and posts those photos and basic information to the Finding Rover app.  People can then search for their animal on their phone, filtering by various fields.  In addition to location, breed, age, etc., Finding Rover will comb their listings for the top five closest matches based on facial features.

As part of this effort, officials say every dog adopted from MADACC and WHS will also be pre-registered in the Finding Rover database; they can be automatically transferred to an owner’s Finding Rover account after adoption.  If that dog ever gets lost, an owner can use using the Finding Rover facial recognition search to help bring his or her lost dog home.