Free Micro-Chipping for NYC Pets

1. Free Micro-Chipping for NYC Pets A Program designed to be free to participants and to make use of micro-chip technology so that lost pets and owners can be reunited faster and easier. By: Ryan Cumming

2. Community Need Chart Program involving a tiny chip injected underneath a pet’s skin that is encoded with an owner’s name, address, and is linked to a national database via an ID number. A swipe with a scanner is all that is needed to find the owners of the pet. Helps to prevent lost, stray, or abandoned animals by finding their homes or the people responsible for neglect and cruelty. Lost pets can be a source of human and animal suffering. This is a graphical representation of the community need found in NYC. This is data recorded only by one Pet Rescue Organization in which many exist. Therefore, the true numbers of homeless pets in NYC are potentially even more startling. Problems that result if left untreated = leads to overpopulation and possible epidemics of zoonoses in addition to those already stated.

3. Community Need Chart Datahttp://www.animalalliancenyc.org/about/reports.htm

4. Logical Approach

5. Logical Approach Literature Review • “Technology Makes It Easier to Reunite Owners and Missing Pets”. • Dr. Kristen Rueststated that technology (i.e. micro-chipping) has many benefits, including a permanent identity for an animal. On the other hand, traditional methods of identification (i.e. collars) can get lost. • Especially in the event of natural disasters, micro-chips make reuniting pets and owners much easier. During evacuation plans, pets are often forgotten or purposely left behind to place human safety first.

6. Lit. Review Cont’d • “Frequency of Lost Dogs and Cats in the United States and the Methods Used to Locate Them”. • A national random digit dial telephone interview conducted between Sept. and Nov. 2010 to find lost and recovery stats of animals. All states had participants except in Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii and Wyoming. 1,015 households owned a dog, cat, or both within the past five years. 15% of dogs and cats were lost respectively. 93% of dogs and 75% of cats were recovered. • Searching the neighborhood or returning on their own were the most common methods of finding dogs. For cats, returning on their own was most common. Dogs were more likely than cats to be lost more than once. Cats were less likely than dogs to have any type of identification. • Knowledge of successful methods of finding dogs and cats can provide invaluable help for owners of lost pets.

7. Lit. Review Cont’d • “Characterization of Animals With Microchips Entering Animal Shelters.” • Study done on 7,704 micro-chipped animals entering 53 animal shelters in August 2007 to March 2008. • Dogs without microchips were returned to their owners 21.9% of the time. Dogs with microchips were returned 52.2% of the time. Cats without microchips were returned only 1.8% of the time. Cats with microchips were returned 38.5% of the time. • Animals with microchips that were not returned to owners was because of incorrect or no owner information in the microchip registry database.

8. Logical Approach Works Cited • Lord, Linda K., Walter Ingwersen, Janet L. Gray, David J. Wintz. 2009, “Characterization of Animals With Microchips Entering Animal Shelters.” Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 235(2): 160-167. • Prohaska, Thomas. 2013. “Technology Makes It Easier To Reunite Owners and Missing Pets.” Buffalo, New York: The Buffalo News. Retrieved April 1, 2014 (http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130714/CITYANDREGION/130719532/1003). • Weiss, Emily, Margaret Slater, and Linda Lord. 2012. “Frequency of Lost Dogs and Cats in the United States and the Methods Used to Locate Them.” Animals. 2(2): 301-315.

9. Evaluation Plan • Evaluation Question: Are pet owners in the Free Micro-chipping Program more likely to be reunited with their lost pets at a higher rate than those not in the program? • Evaluation Design: X O (X=participated in program , O=then got observed). O (did not participate in program, still got observed). ***Post Test Design • Evaluation Statistics: Crosstab/Chi-Square – is the percent of those reunited with their pets higher for those enrolled in the program? Is it a significant finding? Logistics Regression – controlled for race, gender, and whether or not English is spoken at home.

10. Data Analysis • Crosstab – how two variables inter-relate • 0 = Not in program, did not remain lost, stray, abandoned. • 1 = In program, remained lost, stray, abandoned. • For pet owners not in the program, there was a higher percentage of pets that did not remain lost (55.1%) and a lower percentage of pets that remained lost (44.9%) as compared to pet owners in the program (52.7% did not remain lost) and (47.6% remained lost). Therefore, this crosstab suggests that the program did not work.

11. Data Analysis Cont’d • Chi-Square Test – how significant the overall model is. • According to the Asymp. Sig. (2-sided) figure shown in this chart, this model is not significant because the value for the Pearson Chi-Square is .463 > .05 when our goal is to make our value less than .05 for significance.

12. Data Analysis Cont’d • Binary Logistic Regression – measures the relationship between a dependent variable and one or more independent variables. Shows significant levels of variables as well as if the program in question actually works. • Not in Program -> In Program = Positive, yet insignificant (.228 > .05). • Speak English at Home = Positive + significant correlation (.045 < .05) • My program didn’t work because although it showed a positive correlation between Not in Program vs. In Program, program participants had higher levels of pets that remained lost and lower levels of pets that did not remain lost as compared to those Not in Program. Also, the model was not statistically significant at the .05 level. Therefore, my end result of wanting to decrease the amount of homeless pets in NYC did not occur.

13. Sustainability