Pet owners know that putting a dog tag on their collar with information like your phone number and address can help get your dog back if they get lost, but it turns out that contact info can also end up in the wrong hands. Michelle Kimball learned this the hard way after a “friendly-looking” man stopped to pet her German shepherd, Nilla, when she was walking her near her home in North Carolina.
The guy asked if he could take a photo of her adorable pet and naturally, she agreed, thinking nothing of it. But a few hours later, she got a text from a stranger trying to chat her up. When she asked how he got her number, he replied, “Oh, I got it off your dog’s collar.” So he was actually snapping a picture of her personal info on the dog’s tag. Naturally, Kimball was upset and asks, “Why would anybody think that’s okay?”
Unfortunately, it’s not an uncommon occurrence. Safety expert Barb Jordan says people use the tactic to snag private details from dog owners all the time. “We never think that people are going to be using our dogs to get close to us,” she explains. “But predators, they have no limits. They have no boundaries.” She advises following your intuition and only putting your phone number, not your address, on your dog’s tag.
Source: Inside Edition