App used in Napa uses facial recognition to find dogs

NAPA ­- Anyone who’s faced the uncertainty of losing a beloved pet knows the feeling can be compounded by the stress of searching for the missing animal.

Hanging posters, calling shelters or driving around endlessly through neighborhoods are common and time-consuming strategies people use to try and track down a wayward pet.

Now, facial-recognition technology is part of the mix.

The Napa County Animal Shelter and Adoption Center is the first in Northern California to employ Finding Rover, a mobile app and website that allows users to search for missing dogs with their smartphone or computer.

Every dog that enters the shelter is registered on the site. Shelter manager Kristen Loomer said when she found out about the free service, her reaction was, “Wow, this could really increase the odds of reuniting lost dogs with their owners.”

Sonoma County shelter managers have expressed interest in the service, which combines cutting-edge technology with the power of social media to create the digital equivalent of a “lost dog” poster visible to potentially millions of people worldwide.

Say a person spots an unattended dog romping around the park. Using the Finding Rover app, the person takes a picture of the dog and sends it to the database, where a match generates a notice to the owner or to the shelter where the animal is being held. Or, dogs taken in by shelters may already be registered on the site, expediting reunions.

The facial recognition technology, developed by researchers at the University of Utah’s software development center, relies on eight distinguishing markers on dogs, with particular emphasis on the eyes and snout. Human facial recognition, by contrast, employs 128 points of reference.

John Polimeno, who founded Finding Rover, claims that the technology is 98 percent accurate, which is another way of saying that a particular dog being searched for in a field of 100 dogs would come out a top-two match every time.

Polimeno said since Finding Rover launched in late 2013, about 520 dog owners have been reunited with their pets using the service.

“It’s a game-changer for shelters and people looking for animals,” said Polimeno, a retired construction firm owner who lives in the East Bay.

In addition to Napa, several shelters in San Diego County and the SPCA of Monterey County use the technology. Polimeno, who’s headed to Texas next week, said he’s received commitments from dozens more.

Kiska Icard, executive director of the Sonoma Humane Society, said she’s “very interested” to see whether Napa’s experience with the technology leads to dogs being reunited with owners, “and if so, how we can bring it to Sonoma County.”

Loomer said the service works by syncing up with a database the Napa shelter uses to track its animal population. Every hour, photos of dogs taken in by the shelter are uploaded to Finding Rover.

Loomer said the system is a significant improvement from the days when staff relied on carbon-copy print-outs to monitor intake, vaccinations and other shelter services.

“It’s important when you have 200 animals in the shelter to know who is ready to go where,” she said.

Timing can be crucial. Dogs brought in without identification are considered shelter property and can be put up for adoption after six days, excluding the day the animal is brought in, Sundays and holidays.

The Napa shelter only kills animals that have insurmountable medical problems or behavioral issues, such as aggression, that cannot be overcome with training, Loomer said.

She said facial recognition technology shouldn’t replace licensing and tags, and implanted microchips, as methods for keeping track of a pet.

“Those are the mainstays,” she said.

But even those tried-and-true methods aren’t infallible. One of the stray dogs being housed at the Napa shelter, a mastiff mix found in the city of American Canyon, has a microchip that turned out to contain outdated information, hindering efforts to find the owner.

Such “dead-end chips” are all-too-common, Loomer said.

Polimeno, who cites the four tortuous days he and his family spent searching for their black Labrador, Harley, as inspiration for creating Finding Rover, said his hope is to help people avoid similar suffering. He said the plans call for expanding the service this summer to include cats.

“Anybody that has a phone can download the app. It’s free,” he said. “And if they see a dog or cat, they can take a picture.”

The app even includes a handy “bark button” that when pressed makes the phone emit a high-pitched puppy squeal to get the attention of photo-shy pooches. More information is available at www.findingrover.com.

You can reach Staff Writer Derek Moore at 521-5336 or derek.moore@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @deadlinederek.