Finding Rover
Facial recognition app that matches lost and found dogs and cats with their owners.
Acquired — still operating
Finding Rover's facial-recognition technology now powers Petco Love Lost; findingrover.com redirects to petcolove.org/lost/ as of 2026.
About
Finding Rover used proprietary facial recognition technology, developed over two years with the University of Utah research department, to identify lost pets. Owners registered their dog or cat with a photo and zip code; anyone who found a stray could snap a photo in the app, and the system searched a database of more than a million shelter and found-animal photos for a match. A crowdfinding feature pushed lost-and-found notifications to users within a 10-mile radius.
The brand has since been absorbed into Petco Love Lost: as of 2026, findingrover.com redirects to petcolove.org/lost, where the facial-recognition matching continues under the Petco Love umbrella. Founder John Polimeno's team had claimed 98% match accuracy and more than 15,000 reunions; those figures were vendor-reported. Facial recognition works best as a complement to microchips rather than a replacement, since matches depend on photo quality and database coverage.
What it can do
- Pet facial recognition matching
- Lost and found pet database
- 10-mile radius push notifications
- Shelter and rescue integrations
- Free for owners and shelters
- Breed-lookalike search for adopters
Setup
Download the app or visit the site, register with a pet photo and zip code, ideally before the pet goes missing.
Prerequisites
Smartphone or computer; clear photo of the pet; free account.
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 6/10
Scored 6/10 (TIER metrics, metrics-v1). Evidence: multiple municipal and shelter partnerships documented by local press and Veterinary Practice News; University of Utah R&D collaboration and VCA partnership per trade press; findingrover.com now 301-redirects to petcolove.org/lost, confirming absorption into Petco Love Lost; accuracy and reunion counts are vendor-claimed. Strengths: free service, real shelter integrations, technology lives on in Petco Love Lost. Docked for: (1) the 98% accuracy and 15,000+ reunion figures are vendor-reported without independent verification; (2) the standalone brand no longer exists, limiting current adoption tracking. License: proprietary, free service.
How the trust score is built
Full methodology →- Adoption · stars/downloads, log-scaled vs peers
- 6.0/10
- Maintenance · recency, releases, issue load
- 6.0/10
- Openness · license + docs
- 4.0/10
- Manual review · sanity read + red-flag check
- 7.0/10
- · University of Utah R&D collaboration and VCA partnership per trade press
- · Municipal shelter partnerships documented in local press
- · findingrover.com 301-redirects to petcolove.org/lost as of 2026 (absorbed into Petco Love Lost)
- · 98% accuracy and 15,000+ reunions are vendor-claimed
Sources
Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.