“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,” safety expert Barb Jordan said.
Putting a dog tag on your pet’s collar with important information like your phone number and address could help get your dog back if he or she ever gets lost, but now comes a warning that the information could also fall into the wrong hands.
It happened to Michelle Kimball, who got a text out of the blue from a total stranger trying to chat her up.
“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 told Inside Edition
The guy was petting her German Shepherd, Nilla, while they were out for a walk near her home in North Carolina, and apparently took a photo of her number from the tag on Nilla’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.
The same thing happened to Shay Greyson. She was walking her dog when a random man asked to take a picture of the cute Maltese.
“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.
When she saw what he was doing, Greyson chased him down and forced him to delete the pictures.
“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.
Dog parks are friendly environments where we tend to let our guard down. But safety experts warn that you should be wary of strangers who want to pet your dog, because they may really be trying to get your information right off your dog’s collar
Safety expert Barb Jordan says to follow your intuition and recommends that your dog's tag should have your phone number, but not your address.
“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.
Experts also suggest getting a microchip implanted in your pet and noting on the tag that your dog has a chip along with instructions to bring the pooch to the nearest vet to access your information.
