About
HOWL: Because Prevention Is Better Than Found
HOWL is a FREE app to combat theft, proudly presented by The Bark Side.
Since January 2019 The Bark Side Limited has been a retailer of quality, tried-and-tested dog toys, aiming to
bring happiness to both dogs and their owners.
Brutus, our family dog, tests everything before sale, to ensure the
quality of the products. He's at the heart of absolutely everything we do.
On 23 December 2019 a labradoodle named Waffle was stolen at knifepoint
during a 7am walk near his home in Cornwall.
The case sent shivers down our spines, and sparked thoughts of “what
if”. It’s bad enough to think about what
Waffle’s owners were going through…but what was Waffle feeling? What happened to him? Was he stolen to become someone’s Christmas
present and is he now a part of a loving family? Or did something unpleasant happen to him? Was he frightened, did he ever stop pining
for his family? We’re now over two years
down the line and Waffle still hasn’t been found.
During the pandemic there was huge demand for dogs, particularly during the
first lockdown. The price of puppies went sky high, and dog theft increased.
Some dogs were stolen from their homes or gardens; others from vehicles, and other dogs were snatched whilst being walked.
We’re reasonably safety conscious and we realised that we’re most
vulnerable whilst out and about with Brutus.
We’d be devastated if he was taken from us, but worse than that…what
would he be feeling? What would he go
through? The thought of him being
frightened and alone was chilling and horrific.
When a dog is stolen the best we can hope for is that they’re found
quickly and unharmed. And that got us
thinking: PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN ‘FOUND’.
And that’s how the first seeds for HOWL were sown. Learn how the app works here.
Spearheaded by a dog-loving solicitor with a decade's experience in the criminal
justice system, HOWL is designed with one eye on gathering evidence for
intelligence and prosecution purposes and the other on protecting you and your dog in a non-confrontational way.
HOWL is simple to use, and has three important phases of operation:
Prevention: HOWL is
intended to act as a deterrent to any would-be thief. Upon activation it will sound an alarm, and
simultaneously send an alert to your SOS contact.
Recovery: Delays in
circulating your dog as stolen play into the hands of the thief. HOWL helps you to quickly mark your dog as
stolen, and means that key information can be shared almost immediately.
Prosecution: With its
‘tap to activate’ feature, in the event of an incident HOWL will immediately record
the date, time and precise location, and will activate the video camera,
because you may be able to capture useful evidence to assist in a prosecution.
We’ve probably all heard of the calls for longer sentences for dog
thieves, but the reality is that criminals aren’t deterred by longer
sentences. If they were, then we’d have
no murders or rapes. Every criminal
thinks (or hopes) they’ll commit the perfect crime. It’s actually being caught that they fear. With that in mind, HOWL is intended to be the
enemy of dog thieves everywhere.
And if a dog is stolen by force, or the threat of force, then that is
robbery, which is a serious offence in its own right, regardless of whether the
stolen “item” is a smartphone, a dog, or cash.
Robbery almost always attracts a custodial sentence, but it’s the
evidence part that can be the challenge.
HOWL is set to change that.