Lost dog in Ayrshire? Ayrshire Drone Dog Rescue can help

If your dog goes missing in Ayrshire, contact Ayrshire Drone Dog Rescue (ADDR) yourself at addr.org.uk/app. ADDR is a volunteer team that searches for lost dogs across Ayrshire using drones and thermal imaging cameras, and they guide owners through every part of getting their dog home. We're working with ADDR to help lost dogs in Ayrshire get home.

What should you do if your dog goes missing in Ayrshire?

• Report your dog to ADDR at addr.org.uk/app. ADDR ask owners to contact them directly.
• Don't leave the place your dog went missing from, and leave a door to your home open in case they find their own way back. (ADDR's advice.)
• ADDR can only help if no other search team is involved, as conflicting advice can make it harder to bring a dog home.

Who are Ayrshire Drone Dog Rescue?

ADDR are volunteers who search for lost dogs in Ayrshire. They search using drones and thermal imaging cameras. As well as searching, they guide owners through every part of getting their dog home.

ADDR ask owners to contact them directly through their report page, rather than someone else reporting on your behalf. They also ask that only one search team is involved: two teams giving different advice can make it harder to bring a dog home. If another group is already helping you, tell ADDR when you get in touch.

Who else should you tell?

Contacting ADDR doesn't replace the official reports. Do these as soon as you can too:

• Your council's dog warden. In Scotland, as in England and Wales, stray dogs are the council's job under section 149 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. Ayrshire is covered by East Ayrshire, North Ayrshire and South Ayrshire councils, so report your dog to the council for the area where they went missing, and to a neighbouring council if you live near a boundary.
• Your local police. In Scotland, the law lets someone who finds a stray dog take it to the nearest police station instead of the council, so it's worth letting your local police know too.
• Your microchip database. Under the Microchipping of Dogs (Scotland) Regulations 2016, every dog in Scotland older than 8 weeks must be microchipped, and keepers must tell the database about any change to their details. Report your dog as missing and check your phone number is current.
• Local vets. Ring practices near where your dog went missing. Vets can scan a found dog for a microchip.

How can you help a search go well?

Share your dog's details widely, but ask people for sightings rather than catches. A frightened dog may run from anyone, even people it knows, and being chased can push it further away or onto a road. Ask people to note the time and place of a sighting and pass it on, rather than following the dog.

Keep a list of every sighting with the time and place. If your dog is nervous, say so clearly on every post. Our guide on why you shouldn't chase a nervous lost dog explains why, and what to do if your dog goes missing covers the first few hours step by step.

What should your dog wear?

The Control of Dogs Order 1992 applies in Scotland as well as England and Wales: a dog in a public place must wear a collar with the owner's name and address on the collar or on a tag attached to it. A smart tag like Taggzi can sit alongside that tag, but it doesn't replace it. Read our dog ID tag law guide for the detail.

If your dog wears a Taggzi tag

When a dog with a Taggzi tag is reported missing in Ayrshire and is still missing 30 minutes later, we send ADDR a short alert with the dog's photo, where it was last seen and its lost page, so their team is aware. We never ask ADDR to contact you: your Lost Mode email from us links to ADDR's report page, so you can get in touch with them yourself.

How does Taggzi know your dog is in Ayrshire? It uses the place you give as “last seen” when you switch on Lost Mode. If that place is in a KA postcode area, ADDR get one alert for that report. The alert is for information only, and it's sent whichever Taggzi plan you're on.

Lost Mode itself is free. When you switch it on, your dog's page shows a clear lost banner to anyone who taps or scans the tag, and you can print a lost poster with a QR code that opens that page. If your dog is nervous, tick “Nervous” and the page, poster and our community alerts ask people not to approach, call or chase. People who spot your dog can report where and when with “I've seen this pet”, and you get an alert straight away. Finders need no app to do any of this.

Taggzi isn't a GPS tracker. It works when someone taps or scans the tag, alongside your dog's microchip and engraved tag.

Thank you, ADDR

Thank you to Liz and the ADDR team for the work they do for dogs and their families across Ayrshire. You can find ADDR at addr.org.uk and facebook.com/AyrshireDDR.