“From a dog's point of view his master is an elongated and abnormally cunning dog.” Mabel L. Robinson

Now I personally have only owned a dog for a very brief time but I do understand the scariness of losing a pet. There is an amount of helplessness that is awful. I came across this site and it seems to be a very good idea. Fido Finder sells a $5.00 tag to help people find the owners of your lost pet. The site has a step by step example of why the site is good. I will reprint it here so that you can decide.

1. A dog registered with Fido Finder escapes through a hole in the back fence.
2. A few blocks away, a kind family brings the dog into their home because they realize he's lost.
3. The caring family does not recognize the dog and does not know to whom he belongs; he doesn't seem to be wearing a dog tag.
4. The family is smart and visits FidoFinder.com to see if they can locate the owner of the dog.
5. The family submits a lost dog search for Boxer, Brown / White, in the postal code 77065.
6. The family quickly learns that there are 3 registered Boxers in their area: Sandy, Digger, and Bruno. The lost dog is a male, and seems to react when the family says his name, Bruno!
7. The family uses Fido Finder to contact all three Boxer owners in the area just to make sure they find the right owner of the lost Boxer.
8. The family enters their name, email, and phone number into Fido Finder and Fido Finder takes care of contacting the registered owners.
9. An hour later, the phone rings and the worried owner of Bruno is asking about his lost dog.
10. Bruno's owner arrives at the family's residence 5 minutes later to bring his beloved companion home.

Now I have not used the service but I would give it a try if I had a dog.