Track your lost pet through new smartphone app

Have you ever been through the traumatic experience of searching for your lost pet? Finding your cuddly pooch could now be less harrowing using a new mobile app.

The app, called "Finding Rover" and developed by John Polimeno and a team at the University of Utah, uses facial recognition technology to reunite lost dogs with their owners, www.npr.org reported.

The team studied facial recognition technologies used in prisons and casinos to develop algorithms for pets, locating all of their unique facial features. The technology boasts an accuracy rate of up to 99 percent, and the company reports more than 600 happy reunions of pet and owner.

It works like this: Pet owners upload a picture of their dog. Shelters and other Finding Rover users upload pictures of found dogs. Once a dog is reported found, its picture is scanned through all of the "lost" pictures.

A found dog and lost dog are then matched based on the technology and the owner is notified.

Polimeno estimates that Finding Rover has over 100,000 users. Finding Rover's network includes over 100 shelters worldwide as well as several thousand veterinarians.

Currently, Finding Rover only helps find lost dogs, but soon cats will also be added to the app.