Creature credentials Local tag team gets in the name game to help keep tabs on our beloved beasts By: David Sanderson Posted: 3:00 AM CDT Saturday, May. 18, 2024

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This article was published 18/05/2024 (627 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

According to the American Kennel Club, the most popular names for female dogs in 2023 were Luna and Daisy, with Max and Charlie finishing one-two in the male category.

That doesn’t come as news to Melissa Le-Fort, founder of Tag 4 My Pet, a home-based enterprise that markets personalized identification badges for dogs and cats.

Because of their vocation, they have a good grasp on the sorts of names people most commonly choose for their pets, with epithets such as Maggie and Bear also being heavily favoured, Le-Fort says, seated next to her daughter and business associate Marina, in a St. Boniface café close to where they live.

Million-dollar question: Do any animal lovers opt for an old stand-by like Spot or Fido, in this day and age?

Once in a blue moon, mother-and-daughter say almost in unison. But no, neither can recall a customer ever requesting an ID tag sporting the moniker Rover.

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Approximately 1.5 million dogs and close to 800,000 cats are taken in as strays in North America on an annual basis, as per a study conducted by the American Humane Association. Of those, the survey determined only 16 per cent of dogs and two per cent of cats are ever successfully reunited with their owners, the primary reason being the overwhelming majority weren’t wearing an identification tag when they went missing.

Unfortunately, Le-Fort learned the importance of pet ID tags the hard way.

Nine years ago, she along with her husband Carlos and their two children were living in Fortaleza, a coastal city in northeastern Brazil with a population of 2.7 million. The family had an eight-year-old Siamese cat named Brigitte that loved to romp around outdoors, except one afternoon she failed to return home.

They searched their neighbourhood for days to no avail, Le-Fort says, scrolling through her phone to find a grainy, black-and-white photo of herself with Brigitte.

Le-Fort, who immigrated to Canada with her family in 2017, was reminded of that incident in the spring of 2020, after she’d been laid off from her customer-service job, owing to COVID-19. The family had recently adopted a new cat, Mia, to go along with another feline, Marcos and a terrier-mix that answers to Bella.

Mia would require an ID tag bearing her name and their contact information, the same as their other two pets, she told her husband. He jokingly replied that since she was stuck at home “doing nothing,” why not try crafting one herself? Challenge accepted.

Le-Fort spent a week studying YouTube videos on hand-stamping, an old-fashioned technique that involves impressing a mark onto a piece of metal, usually brass, stainless steel or aluminum, by using a ball-peen hammer to strike a metal stamp that has a raised letter or image on the underside. Confident she could duplicate what was she was watching, she and Carlos went shopping for the necessary supplies.

Friends and family members were so impressed with what Le-Fort came up with for Mia that they began requesting something similar for their furballs, too. And because Le-Fort had experience running a business of her own during their time in Brazil, one that revolved around baby clothes, her husband suggested she try selling pet ID tags online, to see if there was any demand.

You have to remember, her daughter interjects, this was occurring during the first summer of COVID, when every man and his, err, dog, was seemingly adopting a pet of some type. That could help explain why within three months of launching Tag 4 My Pet as an Etsy Canada store, it won a first-place award for sales in the pet-supplies category.

One of the things that sets the Le-Forts’ enterprise apart from the competition is that they take great pride in customizing tags according to the name customers grant their pet. For example, if your Malamute’s name is Aspen, or your Persian goes by Cosmos, they are likely to mingle mountains or stars into the finished product. (Melissa still stamps individual tags by hand, but thanks to Marina, a computer engineering student at the University of Manitoba, they’ve also added laser-etched designs carrying a QR code to their arsenal.)

“Usually what I’ll do is ask a few questions about a pet’s personality, to get an idea of what images would go good, like flowers or trees,” Le-Fort says, adding “sure, why not?” when asked if a likeness of a fire hydrant is a possibility.

Additionally, a fair number of people have a sense of humour when it comes to what they want on a tag besides a phone number, address or dietary restrictions. One person asked them to include a phrase reflecting their dog’s utter contempt for kitties, while the owner of a pooch named Winston requested they sum things up succinctly with “Sh*t I’m lost” printed on his.

Chelsey Hayden is the fundraising and adoptions co-ordinator for Tails of Freedom Rescue, a five-year-old non-profit organization in the city. Le-Fort contacted Hayden in the spring of 2021, about a year after she and her family acquired Mia from Tails of Freedom.

“Melissa absolutely loves supporting rescues and she reached out offering fundraising opportunities and help to raise money for our fur babies in need,” Hayden says. “Tag 4 My Pet has held regular fundraisers with proceeds going to us, and has made and donated a few dozen custom tags for our foster dogs, when we have a large intake coming in.”

Le-Fort has also entered into an ongoing partnership that sees the rescue organization net 20 per cent of the proceeds of every ID tag ordered using a Tails of Freedom promotional code.

“The code also provides 15 per cent off any tag and is offered to every person who adopts through us as part of their finalized adoption package,” Hayden adds. “Over the last couple years we have become very familiar with their products. Both our foster animals and our own team’s animals have received tags through them and love them.”

The Le-Forts have shipped close to 40,000 tags to people from 27 countries, including Australia and Singapore. Besides cats and dogs, they have created tags for rabbits, hedgehogs and, in the case of a recent order, an alpaca. They also offer accessories such as collars and poop-bag dispensers, not to mention engraved keychains for their two-legged clientele.

“Ninety-five per cent of our sales are from online orders — I call Mom the human Amazon — but we are working on a model that will allow us to set up displays in pet stores and vet offices, for people who aren’t crazy about shopping online,” Marina says. “We’ll have examples of various tags and people can call us with their pet’s name, and we’ll have it ready, usually in a couple of days.”

While it’s Le-Fort’s wish that her tags be decorative only, and that they won’t be required for their intended purpose, she is relieved to know they’ve already spared some the heartbreak she felt after losing Brigitte.

“Not too long ago a person from Prince Edward Island lost her dog Charley, and told me the only reason they were able to find him 20 kilometres from home was because he was wearing one of our tags,” she says. “Charley’s owner was so overjoyed that she immediately placed an order for the family that found him, for their own dog.”

For more information, go to tag4mypet.com

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca