{"id":150778,"date":"2026-02-10T22:31:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T22:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/150778\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T22:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T22:31:08","slug":"pinellas-county-uses-ai-facial-recognition-to-reunite-lost-pets-with-families-via-petco-love-lost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/150778\/","title":{"rendered":"Pinellas County uses AI facial recognition to reunite lost pets with families via Petco Love Lost"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

LARGO, Fla. – Nationally, one in five animals that enter an animal shelter ends up back home, according to Jennifer Renner, the director of Pinellas County<\/a> Animal Services.<\/p>\n

“We, in Pinellas County, want to change that dynamic,” she said. “We want to get more pets back home with their family. That’s always our goal.”<\/p>\n

What we know:<\/p>\n

Pinellas County Animal Services is now leveraging artificial intelligence<\/a> to help.<\/p>\n

“Petco Love Lost, it’s a free national lost and found database that will just consistently update and alert owners when their pet is found,” Renner said about the online tool they started using in the past couple of months.<\/p>\n

READ: Agape Flights recovers bodies of pilots killed in Haiti plane crash<\/a><\/p>\n

It uses facial recognition through AI to reunite families with their missing four-legged family members faster than ever before.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Described by Renner as “Google for lost and found pets,” the platform simplifies the search process for frantic owners.<\/p>\n

Users who have lost or found a pet can upload a photo to the website and tag the location where the animal was last seen. The technology then collates data from across the country, scanning the entire photo for specific identifiers.<\/p>\n

What they’re saying:<\/p>\n

“It’s looking for unique characteristics, like maybe one eye is a different color than the other, or there might be a brown spot by the ear,” Renner said. “It’s looking at the complete picture to match the pet. It’s going to be more successful.”<\/p>\n

“Normally, we’re seeing about a 40 percent return rate for dogs, and in the Petco Love Lost system, currently we’re at a 50 percent return on animals that are uploaded into that system,” Renner added.<\/p>\n

Dig deeper:<\/p>\n

The technology runs the picture against ones that have been uploaded to the database to try to find a match.<\/p>\n

READ: Driver arrested after trying to make illegal U-turn that caused serious I-75 crash in Hillsborough County<\/a><\/p>\n

Beyond the emotional relief for families, the tool is designed to keep animals out of the shelter system. By allowing community members who find a pet to search the database directly, many reunions happen in the neighborhood without the animal ever entering a kennel.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

“The platform is going to help reduce the length of stay for animals that do end up in the shelter. It’s going to prevent intake in general by getting them reunited out in the community,” Renner said.<\/p>\n

For those that do end up at the facility, animal control officers upload photos immediately while they\u2019re still out in the field with the animal.<\/p>\n

While the AI tool is proving to be a powerful lifeline, officials emphasize that it should not be a pet owner’s only line of defense.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Renner noted that while the database is a significant step forward, microchips remain the most reliable method for ensuring a pet returns home. The AI database serves as a high-tech first response that works alongside traditional methods like microchipping and physical flyers.<\/p>\n

What you can do:<\/p>\n

Owners are encouraged to register their pets on the Petco Love Lost website today to ensure their information is ready in case they do go missing.<\/p>\n

The Source: \u00a0Information for this story was provided by Pinellas County Animal Services and Petco Love Lost.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pinellas County<\/a>Pets and Animals<\/a>Artificial Intelligence<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LARGO, Fla. – Nationally, one in five animals that enter an animal shelter ends up back home, according…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[4038,47,115,8713,1157,202,204,203,199,201,200,1576,628],"class_list":{"0":"post-150778","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-artificial-intelligence","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-pets-animals","12":"tag-pinellas","13":"tag-st-pete","14":"tag-st-pete-headlines","15":"tag-st-pete-news","16":"tag-st-petersburg","17":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","18":"tag-st-petersburg-news","19":"tag-technology","20":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}