Who doesn’t have old USB drives lying around just waiting for something interesting to do? Fortunately, a USB drive can make a great identification device should your dog ever get lost.
We’ve talked about all kinds of clever uses for USB drives. Instructables user ctx1985 shows us another — one that just might get your lost dog returned to you. The idea is pretty simple. Place identification and contact information about your dog into an easily accessible file (a plain text file should work fine). Put that onto an old USB drive and then attach the drive to the dog’s collar. You’ll probably want to use a somewhat weatherproof drive or maybe wrap it up with a bit of duct tape.
As for the contact information, that’s up to you how much you’re comfortable putting on the drive. At the very least, it should contain the dog’s name, breed and general appearance, as well as your phone number or work number. Other things you might consider including:
- Any allergies or medical conditions your dog might have
- Your address or email address
- Your vet’s contact information
USB Dog Identification [Instructables]
Comments
7 responses to “Help Find A Lost Dog With A USB Flash Drive”
what ever happened to just getting a dog tag engraved with its name on one side and your name and phone number on the other.
Or a microchip?
I lost my dog for a day a few years ago. He was found quickly and taken to the local vet for ID, they were too stupid to cross reference the microchip (or name tag) against their own records, since he’d been there multiple times. As a result, he stayed “lost” for another eight heartbreaking hours.
This is good, but a dog may not be too friendly to strangers and a USB drive might be easier to quickly snatch off the collar, than trying to hold the scared/angry dog while you get the number down.
This. Whenever I find a lost dog, I’ll call the owner straight away, we all carry mobile phones nowadays.
Unfortunately, this flies in the face of the advice everyone is normally given to not just plug a USB drive they pick up somewhere into their computer. How many average people that could come across your dog know how to create a safe virtual machine to read the drive with?
If I came across a dog with a USB drive, I’d be thinking “what exploits are on that drive?”
Maybe it will have Malamute-ware.