Website to enhance the dog owning experience in Perthshire.

animals: Now she wants to promote dog-friendly places across the region

It’s every dog owner’s worst nightmare — waking up one morning to find your best friend isn’t curled up at the foot of your bed.

Many owners are reunited with their companions within hours of them being reported lost, but for some the agony and uncertainty goes on for longer.

However, with the advent of social media, the probability of reuniting lost dogs with their owners is higher than ever.

Katie McCandless-Thomas can testify to that. As the founder of the Missing Pets Perth and Kinross Facebook page, she has helped reunite more than 1,500 pets with their owners over the last five years. She set up the page after her own pet, lhasa apso Charlie, went missing.

The page has been such a success that it now has 13,000 members and has been visited about five million times by people keeping an eye out for beloved pets.

“I never imagined when I started the Facebook page that it would do so well,” said Katie, whose pet dog Baxter served as ring-bearer at her wedding.

Now Katie is set to expand.

As well as Missing Pets Perth and Kinross, she also runs the Facebook page Dog Friendly Perthshire, which promotes dog-friendly businesses such as cafes and restaurants and popular dog-walking routes across the region.

The page, which has 7,000 supporters, also organises social gatherings.

Dog Friendly Perthshire has been such a hit Katie is expanding out of Facebook and giving it its own home on the web, with constantly updated listings of pooch-compatible destinations.

The website is being launched with a “puppies and prosecco” party at Perth’s Green Room on April 29.

Doggy stalls, pup-friendly cakes and a fundraiser for the Perthshire Abandoned Dogs Society will be included with the £10 entry fee – as well as two glasses of bubbly.

Katie does not take donations from grateful owners, instead advising them to support animal charities.

She added: “The thanks I get comes from reuniting people with their pets.

“People become very emotional when their pets go missing and it’s a great joy to reunite them with their beloved cat or dog.”

ThethanksI get comes from reuniting people with their pets. KATIE MCCAND LESSTHOMAS

Picture: Crieff Photography. Katie and husband Laurie on their wedding day, with ring-bearer Baxter.