The Story Behind Peeva

A pet goes missing.

What began as an ordinary afternoon suddenly becomes a family emergency. Doors are checked. Neighbors are called. Flyers get made. Social media posts go up. Every passing minute feels heavier than the last.

Across North America, millions of pets are reported lost each year. Microchipping has helped improve the chances of recovery, but the system behind pet identification is still more fragmented than most people realize.

Different registries. Different databases. Different contact records. Different organizations all trying to solve the same problem, often without being connected to one another.

For pet owners, that disconnect can matter. Shelters, veterinarians, rescue groups, and animal control officers work every day to reunite lost animals with their families. But when systems do not talk to each other, delays can happen at the exact moment speed matters most.

It is the kind of problem most people never think about until it happens to them.

For Buffalo entrepreneur Michael Hamilton, it happened twice.

The first time was personal. As a child, Hamilton had a dog who was stolen and never found. Years later, the issue came back into focus when his own microchipped pet was not scanned during an emergency veterinary visit. The chip existed. The technology existed. But the system around it was still fractured.

At the center of the problem was an industry built across dozens of disconnected registries and incompatible scanners. A pet could be microchipped and still fall through the cracks if the right information was not accessible at the right time.

Hamilton saw an opportunity to solve something more fundamental than another pet app or another consumer-facing gadget. The real problem was infrastructure.

He began building Peeva, a Buffalo-based pet technology company focused on creating better connections between pets, owners, veterinarians, shelters, rescues, and the records needed to bring animals home.

Working with engineering leaders at the University at Buffalo, Peeva set out to modernize the way lost pets are identified and reunited with their families. Instead of adding another isolated chip to an already crowded market, the company built technology designed to standardize the process.

Peeva’s system includes universal scanning that can read any chip and frequency, medical records tied directly to microchip IDs, SOS alerts sent to nearby pet professionals, and instant notifications the moment a pet is scanned.

The idea is simple: when a lost pet is found, the path back home should not depend on which database someone checks first.

For Hamilton, Peeva is not just a technology company. It is a response to a problem that has caused too many families unnecessary fear, confusion, and heartbreak.

The mission is clear: no pet left behind.

Empowering Pet Owners and Veterinarians Alike

Pet owners can rest assured knowing that their pet’s medical records are readily available to veterinary professionals, whenever and wherever needed. Whether traveling across time zones, at doggy daycare, or the pet groomer, pet owners can retrieve their pet’s vaccination history and the last administered date directly from their smartphone, making pet care more convenient than ever.