If your pet has gone missing, reporting them as lost takes a couple of minutes and puts everything a finder needs onto your pet's profile page. Take your time over the details — this is what a stranger will read when they have your pet in front of them.
Open the lost report
- Open your pet and go to the Safety tab.
- Find the Lost Mode row and tap Report lost.
You can also tap the … menu on the pet and choose Report as lost. Either way you land on a screen headed Report as lost.
Please note: If you start from the Safety tab and your pet has no active QR tag, the app shows you a QR Tag page first instead of the form. See "Report lost" opens a QR Tag page instead of the form.
Fill in the form
The form has four sections:
| Section | Fields |
|---|---|
| Pet info | Behaviour (comma separated), Language (comma separated), Microchip #, Enter where they were last located |
| Vital information | Allergies, Medical alerts, Medications, Food |
| Vet clinic | Clinic name, Phone number, Enter address of the clinic |
| Additional info | Add info |
What to put in the fields that need a little explanation:
- Behaviour (comma separated) — how your pet acts around strangers. Useful words: Friendly, Social, Shy, Aggressive, Reactive, Calm, Playful, Anxious, Protective.
- Language (comma separated) — the languages your pet responds to, for example English, Japanese, Spanish, Mandarin, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Filipino.
- Microchip # — the microchip number a vet or shelter would scan.
- Enter where they were last located — tap it to open the Last located address search sheet and pick a place.
- Enter address of the clinic — opens the Vet clinic address search sheet.
- Add info — anything else that helps: a collar description, a distinctive marking, where they usually run to.
Tip: Your pet's name, breed and colour are not on this form on purpose. They live on the pet record itself — edit them with Edit pet and they'll show on the finder page automatically.
Submit the report
Tap the red Report Now button at the bottom.
Your pet is marked as lost, the missing date is stamped for you, and you're taken to the Report review screen so you can see exactly what a finder will see. You'll also get the confirmation "Your pet's profile has been updated successfully ✅".
If something goes wrong you'll see "We couldn't update your pet's profile. Please try again." — check your connection and tap Report Now again.
Good to know
- Everything you type is saved on the pet, so if you ever need to report the same pet again the form is already filled in. Just review it and submit.
- Every time you submit with a last-located address, Ask A Vet treats it as a fresh "we last saw them here" — even if the address hasn't changed.
- Once your pet is marked as lost, both the Safety tab and the … menu switch to Mark found, so this form isn't available again until your pet is marked found. In the meantime, Last located on the finder page keeps moving forward on its own: it shows whichever is newer, the address you entered here or the place of the most recent scan of your pet's tag.
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