SAN ANTONIO – A missing San Antonio pet was reunited with its owner after being lost for more than a month, thanks to artificial intelligence.
Juliet Gonzalez’s elderly dog went missing on June 12 during a major rainfall event in San Antonio. Her pet is partially blind and hard of hearing, which made Gonzalez even more worried for the several weeks her dog was missing.
“We were going to the shelters and driving all over the neighborhood looking for her, but we couldn’t find her,“ Gonzalez said. ”It was very scary.”
Gonzalez said she remained hopeful that someone had taken her dog in and cared for her.
After weeks of searching through the West Side, Gonzalez went online to look for answers.
She came across a free, nationwide database for missing pets, Petco Love Lost.
Run by the nonprofit Petco Love, the AI database allowed Gonzalez to enter photos to find matches of reported lost dogs.
“I entered all her information. I put tons of pictures, and I would just check it daily,” Gonzalez said. “It would send me the notices that we found a dog that resembles yours, and it would give me hope.”
When owners upload images of their missing pets, the database uses AI to find missing pets in its thousands of partner shelters across the nation, and ultimately reunite pets with their owners.
“I looked on the site, and her picture was the first one that popped up,” Gonzalez said. “And I was like, that’s her. That’s her!”
René Moreno, the chief of staff at Petco Love, said the system has made matches even after pets have experienced trauma like fires or floods.
To date, Moreno said more than 100,000 missing pets have been reunited with their owners using the tool.
“Once I saw the pictures that they posted with her tongue, I was, like, that’s her,” Gonzalez said. “I felt like I won the lottery.”
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