Quite Important: Up to date photos of your pets and loved ones

I'm on quite a few rescue pages on Facebook and lately the amount of stolen and lost dogs amazes me. What also amazes me is the crappy photos owners have of their pets.
We all take loads of pics of our dogs but how many show your dog/cat/loved ones clearly and easily identifiable to strangers?
I could pick Axel out of a 100 dog long lineup of long coat GSDs but most people won't be able to.
In my Pet Friendly Travel Guide and they recommend you have clear sets of front and side views of your dog plus specific photos of any distinguishing marks and that you keep them up to date as your dog ages.

On my vet cards I have photos of all my pets faces. I update them monthly till my pups/kittens are about 6 months and then once a year.
I'm thinking it might be a good idea to keep a specific folder on my laptop with recent photos of everyone, so if something should ever happen I don't have to sift through a 1000 to find the best pics.
Now getting my mum to pose .... that's going to be a challenge.

You've just given me a good excuse to take even more pictures of my furbabies! Thank you!!!   

 

My vet (nurse) asks for pics everytime I take any of mine & they send a "please bring a new pic" on the reminder for annual shots.

We can also add pics to the national microchip database here.

As for mum's.... I ring her & say.... Hi mum, it's me! Apparently,  we are supposed to check up on elderly friends & relatives so..... checking up on the old people. How are you?

I've been reading up a bit about stolen dogs and it's actually quite hard to get them back. You have to without a doubt prove the dog is yours, photo's and vet records help but they have to be without a doubt.
Microchipping is not proof of ownership.

Scary reading some of the stories.

Microchipped numbers can be duplicated.

Here, the last listed owner will be contacted. If you sell an animal & don't update our national register, you will be held responsible for the animal so...not a big problem here.

great reminder! I take 100's of photos of my boys, all saved on facebook in private folders, and i only share the best ones but it's something to think about

That's a very good point Shisa and one that hadn't occurred to me.

I'm terrible at taking photos and haven't done it for ages, but I'm paranoid about Kuchar getting lost or even worse stolen, so I'm going to do as you suggest.

That's a great idea and something I hadn't thought of. Our vets don't keep pictures on their files.

Try and put a date stamp on the pics as well. If they're ever stolen (and God help none of our furkids are) it can also help prove ownership.

We go a bit overboard with it tbh, but better to be safe than sorry!

I'm quite paranoid because mine have almost been stolen.