The Four Worlds Podcast
The Four Worlds Podcast explores how a simple idea can grow into something that changes the world. Each episode takes you on a journey—from the spark of inspiration, through the creation process, innovation challenges, and to the path of real-world production.
From sketch to shelf and prototype to product, join us as we uncover the stories behind breakthrough inventions and innovations with the creators, engineers, designers, and visionaries who bring them to life.
The Four Worlds Podcast
Finding Home: Using AI to Recover Lost Pets With Petco Love
Learn more about: Petco Love
What happens in those terrifying moments when your beloved pet vanishes? For millions of pet owners each year, this nightmare becomes a reality. But technology is changing the game in remarkable ways.
Abbie Moore, COO of Petco Love, takes us behind the scenes of their groundbreaking lost pet reunification platform that's already brought 120,000 animals home. This isn't the typical post-a-flyer approach, it's sophisticated AI that examines 512 data points in each pet photo, identifying unique markers the human eye might miss. 🐶
According to experts, one in three pets will go missing during their lifetime, with approximately 10 million animals disappearing annually. Once in shelters, return-to-owner rates can be as low as 6%. These realities drove Petco Love to create a universal database that automatically imports listings from 3,200 animal shelters nationwide, plus community platforms like Nextdoor and Neighbors by Ring.
Moore shares heartwarming stories that showcase the technology's power, including a Manhattan dog who traveled 10 miles, was hit by a car, crossed state lines, and made it home within 14 hours thanks to the platform. Even more remarkable? The entire service is completely free, with no premium features or subscription tiers. 🤳
"Unlike in any other category, competition harms everybody in this space," Moore explains, highlighting how fragmented lost pet systems historically prevented reunions.
Whether you're a pet parent or simply someone who cares about animals, this episode offers actionable insights into protecting your furry family members. Register your pet at PetcoLoveLost.org today and become part of the community helping lost pets find their way home. 🏡🐱
Welcome to the Four Worlds podcast from Tomorrow's World. Today, we're diving into the latest in tech, science and sustainability, from nature's mysteries in the world of inspiration to the hands-on crafts of creation, the bold breakthroughs of innovation and the scaled-up wonders of production. This is your ticket to the stories shaping tomorrow, and welcome back everyone. Today, we are joined by Abby Moore, the COO of the animal welfare charity Petco Love, abby. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Abbie Moore:Thanks so much for having me. It's such a pleasure to be here.
Steven Ruffing:No, it's a pleasure having you on. This is another one that we're excited for. Now, before we jump into things for the listeners that may have never heard of Petco Love, just take this time. Tell us a little bit about the charity and how it helps animals every day.
Abbie Moore:Yes, petco Love is the nonprofit arm of Petco and we help animals. We help companion animals in a variety of different ways. We have about 4,000 animal welfare organizations that are partners of ours and over the years we have invested nearly $421 million in those animal welfare organizations and their life-saving work. But we also have our own programs that we do to really make even more of a difference. So we've helped to save almost 7 million pets via adoption different adoption programs. We have distributed almost three and a half million doses of free vaccines, mostly to people who really really need that help, and in many cases their pets have never been to a veterinarian. And the thing that I'm here to really talk about is how we help animals via a piece of technology called Petco Love Lost that uses image recognition, ai technology to reunite lost pets.
Steven Ruffing:And not to put all the great things that you do to the side, because that's why I wanted to give you that opportunity to talk about those other things. But, yes, that piece of technology that reunites the owners with Lost Pets is definitely why we had you on, but we didn't want to discredit all the other great things that you did as well, or do, I should say.
Abbie Moore:Thank you. Yes, we you know, for a relatively small organization, we really have our hands on a lot of pies and help in a lot of different ways and there's so many incredibly brilliant people working on the team and we're so lucky because our goals really are just to help animals. We have a number of different KPIs that we use to measure our work, but at the end of the day, the bottom line for us is just how many animals we can help and how many people we can help and how many people we can help.
Steven Ruffing:And I do believe this is something that a lot of people can relate to and care about, because animals, when it comes down to it, so vulnerable and helping them is something I think a lot of people can unite on. So we'll jump right into that Love Lost program. Tell me all about how that technology, how it works, specifically that facial recognition that helps reunite lost pets with their owners.
Abbie Moore:Okay, you're going to have to stop me if I am rambling on, because this is one of my favorite favorite subjects, so let me start a little bit with the problem that we're trying to solve. So you hear about lost and found pets and you know, first of all, anytime somebody loses their beloved animal, that makes a huge impact on them and their life. But there's also this big systemic aspect of the problem. So about 50 to 60% of pets that are entering animal shelters are classified as quote unquote stray, which often just means they're lost right, and once they get into the shelter they only have a. You know, they have a pretty small chance of being returned home. You know our return to owner rates, which is one of our KPIs RTO return to owner for a really, really great shelter it's probably around 30%, but we see it as low as 6%. So we're also in a time in animal welfare where, for the first time in decades, euthanasia is trending upward instead of trending downward. And so if we can make a dent in that problem by A preventing lost pets from coming into the shelter at all, by reuniting them in the field or, b reuniting them faster if they do get into the shelter, we can make a huge impact on life-saving. So that's really what inspires us and inspired Petco Love to you know first acquire this piece of technology called Finding Rover and then build it into what it is today Petco Love Lost.
Abbie Moore:As far as how it works, I mentioned that there's this image recognition technology, and we can go into that a little bit later in a little bit more detail, but the thing that's really cool about that is that it opens the door for us to reunite pets in a different way.
Abbie Moore:One of the major problems that people have when they've lost a pet is what do they do? Where do they go? There's so many options, there's so many places for people to post lost and found pets, and so it was our goal to take all of those different sources of data and combine them into one database and then use that image recognition technology to compare photos that have been posted on a number of different platforms so that we can reunite. You know, we can match the lost pet listings with the found pet listings, and so we partner with about 3,200 animal shelters, so all of their lost pets are coming into the system automatically. All of their lost pets are coming into the system automatically, and we have partnered with Nextdoor and Neighbors by Ring, and all of their pets are coming into the database as well and of course people report directly into our system. So that's really kind of an overview of how it works.
Steven Ruffing:Now, that's incredible. Now, how do these owners access all of that? Where can they go to find? Are they going to the shelters, or is it just a lot of people kind of corresponding with each other? Is there a lot of different avenues that maybe the owners can access?
Abbie Moore:Yes. So that's a great question. Our goal is sort of wherever your lost and found pet journey begins, that somehow you're making it into our system so that we can use our technology to help you make a reunion. So if you go to the shelter and say, hey, I've lost or found a pet, in many cases what they'll do is tell you to report that pet directly into Petco Live Lost. You know, as I mentioned, we partner with a lot of animal shelters and in addition to their own pets the pets that are in their care coming into the system, they're also talking to members of their community who are reaching out to them for help and even if that pet doesn't come into the shelter, they're recommending that that person report the pet into Petco Love Lost. So that's one avenue.
Abbie Moore:If somebody posts their lost pet on Nextdoor, let's say or let me use Neighbors by Ring, which is a little bit different example If they had a lost or found pet there, they're given an option to automatically have that pet also appear in our system. If you are posting on Nextdoor and someone's searching on Petco Love Lost, we are automatically bringing all of those next door pets into our database as well. So it's just sort of a. It's a very complex process to manage all of this, all these different data sources, but it's so important that all lost pets and all found pets are in one single database because you know, unlike in any other category, competition harms everybody in this space. If you lose your pet, stephen, and you post that pet on Nextdoor and I find your pet and I post on Petco Love Lost, or post on Neighbors by Ring, and we don't have this universal database, we're not going to make that reunion happen.
Steven Ruffing:Yeah, it'll just be a lot of going back and forth, a lot of different going through one door, going out a different door. So, when you're thinking about this technology, why did you choose that facial recognition? Was it one of the easier ways to make sure that all of these pets get into the database? I'm sure that might be the case.
Abbie Moore:Yes, that is definitely part of the reason I mean. First of all, it's just a very precise way of searching. It also removes, in the case of animal shelters, some of the manual labor involved. You know, prior to Petco, love Loss and even sometimes now, animal shelters have people on their staff who will manually comb through listings on social media or, you know, will take the pets in their care and really try manually to find listings or even look at flyers that are posted in their neighborhood. That's not a, you know, it's not the best way to use these people's time, and so, by using this AI technology, it removes that sort of manual labor and also removes human error from the equation.
Abbie Moore:There are so many times when we make a reunion happen and we'll look at the lost pet photo and the found pet photo and, with the naked eye, they don't look like the same animal. But you know, with you know, our, our we just launched a totally refactored machine learning and it uses 512 different data points, you know, to compare photos and it can see things that we don't see, and so that's. That's another thing, but the but you know, what you mentioned is also really important. That's another thing, but what you mentioned is also really important. We need to suck in all of these photos, all of these different data sources and without any other information, we can make that reunion happen.
Steven Ruffing:And that's a really great point. Thinking about all of the animals in, let's just say, the United States, you're bound to have dogs or cats that look like each other. Cats specifically, I mean, you have some orange tabbies that I couldn't tell the difference between 10 of them. Does this AI technology? Is there certain aspects of the pet's face that it really focuses in on? Like you said, there's things that it can see, that the human eye can't see.
Abbie Moore:Yes, so it goes beyond facial recognition. It's the full image and, as I mentioned, it's 512 different data points, different combinations of data points. But, yeah, it can focus in on things like eye color, on the shape of ears, on the distance between different features on the face on, you know, different features on the face, on body markings, I mean different markings in the fur, tail size. You know all kinds of things that we don't see. And, in addition, we can use multiple photos to create a composite of an animal. So if the first photo that someone uploads doesn't show a marking on the body but the second photo does, our system will combine everything that we know into one sort of virtual image.
Steven Ruffing:It is really incredible what technology can do Just throwing all of those photos and images together. It really is amazing what technology, specifically AI, is capable of.
Abbie Moore:It really is, and you know you mentioned all the different, all the households that have pets. I mean this could illustrate the scope of what we're talking about. You know it's about 89 million households own a pet and our data shows us that one in three pets will go missing during the course of their life. And so you know, some estimates are about 10 million animals going missing every year. That's a lot of opportunity to help a pet when in reality these are animals. They have a mind of their own, they have instincts, they like to roam, things happen, and so we just really want to take all of that weird emotion out of it and just help solve the problem.
Steven Ruffing:Yeah, you really don't know what will happen. Just a quick story. One of our chihuahuas Hershey. And just a quick story, my one of our chihuahuas Hershey. Before we had adopted them, before we rescued them, we found out a story about her that she roamed for a year, just got out, roamed for a year and then eventually her microchip brought her back. Would have been great to have that technology.
Abbie Moore:Yeah, yeah, I mean talking, you know, speaking of microchips. Microchips are incredible and you know we always like to say if every pet had a microchip and every microchip was up to date, had up to date contact information in the system and was registered to begin with, and every person who found a pet knew how to take that pet to get that microchip scanned, we might not need to exist, you know, like problem solved, but there's just a huge problem with getting those microchips registered. For some reason, no matter what we do to encourage people to register that microchip, they're not doing it or if they're moving, they're not updating that information. Right, but there's, we can still make a reunion happen based on microchip number, even if that microchip has never actually been registered in any system. And we did that recently.
Abbie Moore:There was an incredible story of a guy in Manhattan who and this actually made the news it was all over the place, so you may have heard this story, but this guy, michael, and his dog, millie. She was on a walk in the East Village with a friend of his. She slipped her I'm talking about the East Village in Manhattan slipped her collar Somehow. She ran 10 miles to Harlem where she was hit by a car.
Steven Ruffing:Oh geez.
Abbie Moore:Picked up by a good Samaritan who stopped traffic to get her, and then that person took Millie across state lines to Paramus New Jersey, took her to a veterinary office to have her seen for her injuries and the veterinarian uploaded her to Petco Love Lost. Now, in the meantime, her owner is uploading her to Petco Love Lost and we have a field for microchip and he realizes oh my gosh, I've never actually registered the microchip, but I have the microchip number on the adoption paperwork and so he added it in. The veterinarian who's seeing Millie scans her, finds the microchip number, adds that to Petco Live Lost. And Millie was home 14 hours after going missing and crossing state lines.
Steven Ruffing:That is incredible. So if anybody could take something away from this podcast. If you have pets and haven't registered your microchip, I think that's a pretty darn good story to to encourage them.
Abbie Moore:Yes, I mean you just can't. You can't take enough precautions when you're talking about someone in your family who means so much to you and you know, when you look at the data, it is likely that your pet will go missing at some point during their lifetime.
Steven Ruffing:Yeah, absolutely, and that's just a great story to kind of emphasize the, let's say, urgency and necessity. Are there any other stories that may come to mind, just from your personal experience with your time at Petco Love that kind of again emphasize the necessity?
Abbie Moore:Yes, before I jump into that, let me just say that people can preemptively register on Petco Love Loss before their pet ever goes missing, which is great, because when you're in a panic and your pet is missing, locating things like the best photos or the microchip number or anything that they want to add in is. You know, it's kind of onerous when you're when you're panicked. But if you already have that, you know that profile set up. All you have to do is click one button and activate it. But another story is recently.
Abbie Moore:This is there's a woman who was on vacation in Watsonville, california, northern California, and her dog trying to remember the story. A door was open, the dog bolted. Dog trying to remember the story. A door was open, the dog bolted and she uploaded this. The dog to petco love lost, stayed out of town longer than she was supposed to search for days and days and days, was absolutely heartbroken, finally went home to southern california, kept checking every single day on petco love lost. Five months later we sent her an alert that her dog was in the santa cruz county animal shelter and they were reunited five months later. So you know, most of the time these reunions are happening, like you know, within 24 hours. But it does show you that not to give up hope that there's a. There's a journey that some animals take, that it takes them a while to get into any system, but we can still make that reunion happen.
Steven Ruffing:Yeah, that's a great takeaway with this technology. It's something that just lets you hold on to that hope just a little bit longer, because sometimes not every case is the same. Sometimes it will take five months. That's a really great point. I appreciate that story. I really hope this kind of encourages a lot of people and opens up their eyes to what you do and the technology and how you use it. So that that is great.
Abbie Moore:And, by the way, everything we do is totally free. You know, there is not even a way for you to spend money in the system, unless you want to make a donation to support our nonprofit, of course. But we want to make sure that, no matter who you are or what means you have or don't have, that you are able to find your lost pet and that we're offering the same level of service that we. You know we don't have any premium features. Everybody has access to the same level of service for zero dollars.
Steven Ruffing:That is incredible. Again, I'm sure a lot of people's ears have perked up after that because that is really great, and that's just goes to show the importance of charities, and especially when it comes to animals.
Abbie Moore:Yes, and we're very fortunate because of our relationship with Petco. You know, about 90 percent of our operating budget comes from those little donations that people make when they're checking out at their local Petco store and because of that we're able to just concentrate on doing good work. We don't have to constantly be thinking of ways to monetize our systems.
Steven Ruffing:We can just do what's right for animals and people. Another great point, really. Now let's talk about the creation of Petco Love Lost and its platform. How did your team the teams maybe before you how did they go about in the early stages, building that Love Lost platform?
Abbie Moore:Yeah. So let me preface this by saying I am not an engineer, but I will tell you all about the funding. So, as I mentioned, the first iteration of what became Petco Love Lost was something called Finding Rover and they were just brilliant in their foresight. And they were just brilliant in their foresight. You know, this was long before people were really talking about AI, long before generative AI was part of our daily vocabulary, and they realized that there was this opportunity Now that technology became quite outdated.
Abbie Moore:You know, early challenges, of course, with any machine learning is finding enough data to train the system on. You know, now it's a lot easier for us. We have about 10 million photos passing through our system annually and it helps us to really constantly be training the system to be smarter and more independent and to recognize different aspects and to weight different aspects of a pet's image differently and correctly. But early on, where do you get millions of photos to train on? So that was a challenge and also back then it was very manual entering in the photo and then tagging different parts of it and even manually creating an outline of a photo of a pet. Luckily we don't have to do that anymore because systems are so much smarter and will continue to get smarter.
Abbie Moore:You know, unlike a microchip, this system is not like a one-to-one match. It's not like you upload your photo. We give you one result this is definitely your pet. We're going to result this is definitely your pet. We're going to give you a page of search results ordered by what we think is, you know, most likely your pet. We assign different, you know score ups and we, you know, feature the highest score at the top. But eventually, I hope that it will be really accurate. Maybe it's like hey, here are two pets, one of these we think is yours and that's it.
Steven Ruffing:The beauty of it is the technology can only get smarter from here. Right now, as we're talking, it's the smartest that it will ever be, or it's the smartest quote yeah, it has ever been, and so that is the beauty of it and and just thinking about that and it's able to learn, it's able to grow and hopefully one day those search results will be first result. It's yours, and maybe that's what you might be looking towards in the future.
Abbie Moore:That is definitely a goal. You know, I think of a world in which we know your pet went missing before you do. You know, maybe you're at work and your pet goes out the door and your pet gets entered into the system and we know that you live at X address and that you have this pet and we're able to really make a match and contact you proactively. Today you need to manually activate your listing, but why see a time before too long where we'll really have such a vast database of people who have proactively added their pets to the system before their pet ever goes missing? That will really be able to reach out proactively and help your pet come home really quickly.
Steven Ruffing:No, that's great. And when we talk about the origins, you said Finding Rover, acquiring them was a huge part of getting this off the ground. Are there any other key partnerships that really get Petco Love to where it is today?
Abbie Moore:Yes, animal shelters, which are a huge source of pet data. They tend to manage their operations using one of several different shelter management software programs. So when pets come in they're onboarded into that system and these systems manage the pet through the sort of life cycle of their time in the shelter. We have partnerships with each of those shelter management software systems so that those systems are automatically shipping those pets into our system, managing them, removing them when they're no longer in the system. That was enormous, I mean. It's a huge effort but also has a ton of payoff.
Abbie Moore:And now you know I mentioned that we also have this sort of B2B2C part of our strategy where we're also using those relationships to reach members of the public. And so you know, when we look at any kind of multi-sided platform really depends on having enough you know, enough users on both sides of the platform. For us it's also we need to make sure that and I digress, but that we have, when we look at lost pets versus found pets, that that's kind of equal. And even geographically, you know, if I'm looking in Los Angeles or Omaha, nebraska, I need to make sure that I have an equal number of lost and found pets in those specific areas, and so you know we look at a lot of different aspects to make sure that we're doing the best job.
Steven Ruffing:Yeah, absolutely. And speaking of that, you answered a lot of the questions that I have prepared, so I just would appreciate that. And that takes me to kind of my next point about just the future of this innovation. What other pieces of technology? Of course we talked about the microchip technology. Are there any other forms of technology that you'd like to tap into to kind of enhance the system?
Abbie Moore:Yeah, I mean I think this is probably a ways off in the future because you know there's so much work to be done in what we're doing and to perfect what we're doing. But you know, I'm personally excited about biometrics and using more things like, you know, nose print, technologyco, love Lost and other systems like that. It really does enlist the help of the community and bring them in as a partner, because animal shelters are, you know, they're filled with people who are just doing great work every day and they care so much, but the onus should not be on them. You know, to solve every problem, the community needs to step up and be a part of the solution, and so that's really what we're trying to do is take some of that pressure off of the animal shelters and really democratize the ability to reunite lost pets.
Steven Ruffing:You're absolutely right, because a lot of those employees are volunteers at those shelters and every corner you look, those shelters are often overpopulated. It's really sad to see, and I think that's something that Petco Love can really help is alleviating that pressure, just like you said, from those shelters.
Abbie Moore:Yes, yeah, and you know. To dive a little bit more specifically into what's happening currently with animal shelters is you know we're still seeing adoptions happen and we're not seeing a huge increase in animals coming into the shelter, which I know there's a lot of reporting out there that tells a different story. But what we are seeing is the length of stay of animals in shelters going up. It's taking longer to get them out the door and because of that there's an accumulation of pets. That happens in the shelter and that's what's causing this overpopulation and bringing us to a time when perfectly healthy, friendly, adoptable pets are at risk because there's just no space.
Steven Ruffing:Right, and we can go on and on about that and addressing that issue, but just with hopes of Petco Love, you know, definitely one day alleviating that. And then my next question may be a little difficult for you, so I just want to prepare. You gave me the percentages of the return to owners. The RTO, I believe, is what you called it. Roughly, how many pets has Petco Love helped reunite with their owners?
Abbie Moore:Okay, this is a great question. Okay, good, let me preface. Well, let me say it's 120,000 that we know of. I mean, that's just from the last couple of years and we're kind of on this hockey stick part of our growth where, you know, it took us a while to get off the ground and rebuilding the technology and now it's really taking off and rebuilding the technology, and now it's really taking off. I say that we know of because it's often difficult to get people to follow up and tell us what happened, and so we do our best to follow up and ask them you know, were you reunited with your pet? If so, did Petco Love Lost? You know, were we instrumental in making that reunion happen? And that's where we're hearing from individuals. 120,000 individuals have told us that, yes, their reunion happened. And that's where we're hearing from individuals. 120,000 individuals have told us that, yes, that reunion happened. And, yes, it was Petco Love Lost that made it happen.
Steven Ruffing:That is absolutely incredible and we'd love to see that number go up. And with hopes, with hopes, that number is more than what it is, and you'd have to assume that it is.
Abbie Moore:Yeah, I mean we think it's significantly higher. But we want to be very honest about reporting our progress and we want to be honest with ourselves, because I think the most dangerous thing that you can do, if you're in any area of innovation that is really impact driven, is to tell yourself a story that things are better than they are. There's always room for lots of improvement. There's room for us to innovate more. There's room for us certainly to spread the word more and to get more people aware of Petco Love Lost and when they see people on social media posting about their lost pet, to recommend that they go and create a free account on Petco Love Lost and post their pet. But 120,000 is still something that we're very proud of.
Steven Ruffing:And would you encourage, let's say, people that aren't pet owners to also maybe register or download the app or what have you, just to kind of keep an eye out? Is that something that Petco Love does?
Abbie Moore:I mean that's a great thing to do. I don't think I've ever been asked that. That's a great question. Yeah, there are people who, whether they have a pet or not, we call them super users. They're in the system all the time. They are looking on their local social media, they are taking responsibility for sort of being.
Abbie Moore:I remember block parents Like you might be too young, when I was a kid.
Abbie Moore:I remember block parents Like I you might be too young when I was a kid we had block parents. If you were in trouble you knew what house to go to for help. So there are people who have sort of kind of assigned themselves that role of being the guardian of pets in their community and we actually have a special page that people like that can go to. If you go to our homepage at petcolovelostorg and you scroll down, you can click on see all pets and you don't have to upload a photo, you can just search. We also have a really cool map view that we just launched that shows where pets were lost and found in a community and allows people to post sightings as well. So even if they don't have the lost pet in their care, but they saw a pet, they can help, be part of the solution and certainly, even if you don't have a pet, you can still find a pet in the street at any given time and we're here to help because we know that's a very stressful situation.
Abbie Moore:You don't know what to do Maybe you're on your way to work and to stop and try to help. We really appreciate.
Steven Ruffing:No, that is awesome because I can't imagine how many times you know just me, for example like I've seen dogs on the side of the road where you're kind of unable to stop your car get out and help One we did stop and it was an aggressive dog. That seemed like it was, you know, just scared. That seemed like it was, you know, just scared. You know that happens, I'm sure, to a lot of people. So, having this outlet, something to kind of let a community know, without having to really put the dog, pet, cat, whatever at risk, yep.
Abbie Moore:Very good point.
Steven Ruffing:Now we are talking about people joining in animal shelters, getting involved with that technology. What does that onboarding process kind of look like? Or is it just so simple that they just go right on to the website and they're in?
Abbie Moore:It is very simple. We have a team, a small team of people who do outreach to animal shelters and help them get onboarded into the system. It's a very simple process. We just, you know, we want to remove as much friction as we can and, like I said, I know animal shelters are just constantly busy trying to save as many lives as possible and help as many community members as possible. So if we can take this work off of their plate and make it easy for them to sign up and connect that animal shelter software that I mentioned so that their listings are automatically uploaded and maintained, that really is our goal.
Steven Ruffing:Absolutely, and I could sit here and talk about the technology behind it, but as we wrap things up, I really would love to hear maybe a powerful story you personally have heard with a family being reunited with their pet and some of the feedback that you've got from pet parents or pet owners that have used the platform.
Abbie Moore:Yes, I actually have a piece of feedback right in front of me that just came in. We do a lot of, you know, we do a lot of qualitative research. We talk to people every week who have lost or are down paths, whether they're successful or not in reuniting them. We did an interview with an 85 year old woman who was reunited with her cat and she sent an email after the interview and I'm looking at it and she said I thought about it after the interview was over but I wish I had said I'm 85 years old and if I can do it, anybody can do it. It's very user-friendly and that was so like just music to our ears that we've created something that no matter how savvy you are I mean regardless of how intricate and sophisticated the technology underlying the system is that anybody can come and use it and easily get into the system and figure out how to reunite with their pet. So that's very meaningful. But clearly anybody who's ever loved a pet and especially if you've lost one you know how absolutely terrifying it is. And so we hear a lot of feedback from people who are just incredibly grateful that we were there to help them, whether we helped or not. We hear from people that we weren't able to help, who still appreciated what we were able to do for them and help them calm down and give them some hope in the moment. So there's that.
Abbie Moore:I will end with the story of how, the story that's behind the acquisition of Finding Rover.
Abbie Moore:Our chief financial officer, caroline incredible, brilliant person. We had some involvement with Finding Rover, we were partnered with them and we knew that they had some interest in being acquired. Right at that moment Caroline's two beloved little dogs escaped her home and she was frantic and on a whim. She remembered, you know, finding Rover and that we were partnered with them and she added her pets and got a match. I mean like miraculously, got a match that her pets were in a shelter. She called that shelter, that shelter said her pets weren't there, and so she was able to call the, to go to the shelter and say I know my pets are here because I see like there's a match and I see the pets are in your system and she was able to get her pets back. And that really was what sort of sparked the. We need to become the caretakers of this piece of technology as the nonprofit in the field. We need to make sure that everybody, like Caroline, is able to reclaim their pets.
Steven Ruffing:That is incredible. That is a great story and I wish I would have asked about that earlier, but I will say that is a great kind of point to end on, really the footnote of this interview. That's incredible.
Abbie Moore:Yeah, it's something that we talk about all the time as our origin story. Yeah, it's something that we talk about all the time as our origin story. And you know, you just never know how valuable something like that is until it happens to you and you're that frantic pet parent.
Steven Ruffing:Yeah, absolutely. But the one thing I do want to end on just feel free to tell everyone where they could find you, how they could follow and how they can sign up for Petco Love.
Abbie Moore:Yes, you can find us at PetcoLoveLostorg and you can create a preemptive registration. It's super, super easy. It's just the bare minimum amount of information that we need from you. We're very protective of people's personal information. Also, we don't sell it. We don't share it with anybody. Very protective of privacy. Upload a photo and just make sure that you are prepared If anything happens. You can just click your one button and activate your listing and certainly, if you lose or you find a pet, we're here to help at any time, 24 hours a day, free of charge PetcoLoveLossorg.
Steven Ruffing:And, of course, there's a lot of things that we did not get to. So take that time and really explore all of the things that Petco Love does that we didn't have a chance to get to today. All right, abby, thank you so much. That's all the time we have. We just want to thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate it. This was a lot of fun.
Abbie Moore:Thanks for having me this was a fantastic conversation and thanks for asking so many great questions.
Steven Ruffing:We appreciate it. We appreciate it, of course. All right, everyone. That's all the time we have. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening to this episode of the four worlds podcast. Until next time, you can catch up on the latest innovations shaping our world at tomorrowsworldtodaycom. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
