What’s The Probability That Your Pet’s In A Certain Area?

You’ll never have enough time to search an area for you pet inch by inch. You’ll need to target your energies into the areas where the missing animal is most likely to be. This is called determining a Probability of Area (POA) and is determined by various factors: 

• The type of animal that’s missing 
• The patterns of behavior in that particular species
• The environment of the animal 
• The temperament of the individual animal 
• The motivation of the animal 
• The terrain of the search area 
• The weather 

Let’s say you suspect your animal is missing in one particular yard. Try breaking the yard up into 4 equal areas. If you search one part completely, then the probability increases that the animal will be found in one of the other three parts. In simple math terms, each of the 4 areas of a yard is 25% of the total. If you search one area then the chances go up higher (33%) that the animal is in one of the other 3 areas. 

It’s rare that an area can be searched with a 100% POD. Therefore a search is forced to be undertaken in a given area at under 100%. This means that is an area is searched and the missing animal isn’t found, even with a 95% POD, there’s the possibility (5% chance) that the missing animal might have been missed or that the missing animal wasn’t in the search area to begin with. This is ok as you can now cross off your list a potential place to look!

Several Surefire Methods For Finding Your Lost Snake

I’ve yet to meet a snake owner, especially those that own constrictors, who haven’t had to go searching their homes or yards because it escaped. Snakes are thin, strong, and extremely intelligent when it comes to escaping their confines or going wherever they want to go. Once they’re out, it’s quite a challenge to find them. It’s as if they have a sixth sense to hide where no one can find them, even it it’s in plain sight! 

One thing that owners have on their side is that often snakes are not big travelers. In order to conserve energy, they like to find tight, dark spaces and hide rather than, like a dog, travel as far as they can go. In one instance I found someone’s red-tailed boa constrictor wrapped around the strap of a book bag in the person’s basement 3 feet away from the escape point. It was camoflauaged so well that I missed seeing it the first time through the basement during my initial search. 

Often people think that if their pet has gone missing and they haven’t seen it for 5 days that the pet has traveled for 5 days straight. This can sometimes be true for dogs. Reptiles, and in particular snakes, however, do not behave in this way. Don’t overestimate their travel distance. Look everywhere, including areas right out in the open. Usually if a snake escapes from its housing in a room of a home, it’s likely still in the same room. 

If the snake can’t be found after an initial search then there are some proactive ways to go about getting it back. Every home has cracks and holes of some kind that a snake would love to hide in. Try using a metal coat hanger to probe areas that could be great hiding spots. First untie the coat hanger and then wrap some masking tape around one end so that it’s not sharp. The last thing you want to do is to puncture your pet! Then gently insert the coat hanger into potential hiding places. Some great places to try this outside include holes in trees and railroad ties. Remember that if a snake can swallow a huge rat or egg then it has great stretching ability and can enter holes that you’d unlikely even think were possibilities. 

Another simple and common way to find a snake is the “flour on the floor” technique. This is more a way of determining that a snake is in an area rather than actually capturing it. If you have a tiled floor or cement basement, spread flour around at night. Snakes are very active in the dark. In the morning it’s possible to see visible “snake tracks” through the flour. If so, then you can narrow your search. 

A third method is to actually attempt to trap your snake. Get a large cardboard box and cut a circular hole near its base. Turn the box upside down on the floor of an area where the snake might be. The only entrance into the box is through the hole. Then, purchase a small metal mouse cage and put a mouse inside of the cage. Put the entire cage into the box. During the night the snake will smell the mouse and enter the box through the hole. It’s likely you’ll find your snake in the box in the morning. If you have a cold house, a small space heater near the box will help, or turn your heat up so that the snake is sure to be active.

Trapping Techniques Part 3

Where to place the trap?

Place the trap in places that appear to be a good hiding spot but also where an animal won’t feel boxed in, and don’t trap in places that are out in the open. Animals that are scared like the security of moving along edges of things. Primo places would be along fence lines, near sheds, or under decks. When the animal evaluates if something is good to approach, it will try to determine safety from far away. It will want to know that it can approach with some degree of camouflage and yet see enough open space so it won’t feel cornered. 

If there is a hole that might appear to be a good target, face the trap inwards towards the hole. Under decks, place the trap along a wall edge or something that faces towards the inside. If you’re using many traps, place each one out of sight of the other trap. Sometimes simply seeing a fellow trapped animal may cause an animal to think twice about entering a trap. 

Scared animals tend to stay away from houses, but in very bad weather, the distance an animals strays may be closer to home. You can place a trap close to a house as long as the animal has access to its perceived safety in the wild. There is one case of someone who was able to trap his cat under a picnic table on his neighbor’s porch. 

If you trap on the same property many times, try to create a safe area that would attract a scared animal to stick around. That means leaving containers of water in several protected areas, placing canned food out in the daytime (not in traps) in protected areas (then at night remove this food and put fresh food in the traps). Walk around the property barefoot and plan activities like weeding or yard work that would leave your scent in the area.

How Long Can A Scent Trail Survive?

A common question often posed to Pet Detectives is “If my pet has been missing for a day-month-year can a search dog still pick up a scent?” 

If the lost pet is a small animal that won’t travel far and you can estimate a specific area where a dog can search, then a cat detection or specific scent dog could potentially be helpful. These two types of search dogs do not attempt to track a scent trail that was deposited by the lost pet. Instead, cat detection and specific scent dogs search for a stationary “scent cone” or the cloud of scent that would be coming off of the animal. 

This “area search” method is how bomb dogs and drug dogs are used. They don’t track the scent of bombs or drugs but instead they just detect scent. In the same way, cat detection dogs don’t attempt to follow a scent trail but instead they attempt to detect the scent of a cat. Many dogs are also trained in tracking decomposition scents so that if your cat is suspected to be dead after being lost for a month, they can likely assist in the recovery and bring closure. If your pet is a dog that’s been missing for a month, the scent trail is probably no longer there for a search dog to track and follow. 

How long is scent viable? The truth is, scientifically, no one knows for sure. Estimates based on prior successes worked by search dogs can be made. The majority of successful scent trails that have been worked reveal that the oldest successful trails are about ten to twelve days old. In general, most search-and-rescue trailing dogs are unable to do accurate work on scent trails that are older than seven days. 

It’s important to keep in mind that scent trails in residential areas that are contaminated with other animal scents, people scents, and auto traffic are more difficult to work compared to a week old scent in a cool, damp forest. Scent has a better chance of surviving in dark, damp, and cool areas compared to open ground on pavement. Scent can also be moved or destroyed by wind currents, passing cars, and sunlight that dries it out.

Lost Pet Posters & Inattentional Blindness

In the past week how many letter-size papers have you seen stapled to telephone poles that read “Lost Dog” or “Lost Cat?” Chances are you’ve seen them but aside from that the details of actually what was on the page has probably slipped your mind. Don’t feel bad as it doesn’t mean you don’t care about animals. What’s happened is that you had a case of “Inattentional Blindness.” Inattentional blindness is defined as the inability to perceive things that are in plain sight. 

Where else have we experienced inattential blindness? For one, inattentional blindness is used by magicians in the presentation of “magic shows” in the performance of some tricks by focusing the audience attention on something other than what the illusionist is trying to accomplish. Magicians call this “misdirection.” Another example is the pictures of the lost children on the milk cartons. Studies have been shown that people have walked right by children on the street that they’ve seen a half-hour earlier pictured on the back of a milk carton. 

So if we’ve lost a pet, and we’re told to post flyers on poles at intersections, then what good is it if people don’t see them? The solution is to understand how people are actually “wired.” Unless someone is paying attention to something, they won’t “see” or notice it. If a person is concentrating on driving, looking at a signal light, or is talking on a cell phone, they are just not going to notice a lost pet poster and they won’t receive the information posted. 

Research suggests that the absence of expectation, such as the expectation for seeing a lost pet poster, may be sufficient conditions for a state of inattention. When a lost pet poster falls outside the area to something that’s significant to the driver then it will likely not be noticed. So if the driver is not an animal lover then the poster won’t be noticed. Animal lovers are more likely to notice lost pet posters. 

How can owners of lost pets get around this issue of inattentional blindness? How is it best to get the attention of everyone and not just lovers of pets? Color is one way. Fluorescent posters are more likely to be noticed during periods of inattention. Colorful posters scream for attention! It’s the same reason hunters and road crews wear loud orange clothing. Size is another way. If a driver is focusing on reading a street sign or looking at a signal light, it’s very unlikely they’ll notice a lost pet poster unless it’s bright and BIG. 

The goal is to create a large, multi-element display covering a large area which will capture attention and capture attention immediately. Size matters and lost pet poster boards should be both fluorescent and they should be large. So giant, fluorescent lost pet posters are going to be noticed if they are placed near signal lights at intersections where drivers are already focusing their attention. Capturing attention in this way gets circumvents inattentional blindness and increases the probability that the lost pet will be reunited with his/her family.

Cat Detection Dogs

So what do cat detection dogs do?  Cat detection dogs find lost cats, pure and simple.  These dogs are used to search a particular area for ANY cat that might be hidden.  As with other detection dogs, like hunting dogs and bomb dogs, cat detection dogs are given a command and then begin to search. They react when they detect the scent of a cat.  If during a search, they find the wrong target, they’re told “Good job now find another!”  and they then  search for more cats. 

Cat detection dogs are trained to react on the scent of cats.  In training, a cat is crated and hidden and the dog is taught to search for it.  Dogs that are trained in the work are ones that get very excited when they detect the scent of a cat. 

There are 2 advantages as to why  dogs are trained for this type of work.  First, since only their behavior is shaped, the training process is quick – about 3 to 5 months.  Second, since a cat dog doesn’t need an item that contains a scent (like that of the lost cat) and since it will alert on any cat that’s in the area, all lost cats can potentially be found, including homes with many cats where there is no clean scent item of an individual cat around. 

The main disadvantage to cat detection trained dogs is that they can only bes used to search for cats because their training is so specific. 

Only dogs that have a high level of interset playing with cats are selected for this training method.  Some of these dogs chase cats if given the chance and often can’t live with one because they’re unable to contain their excitement.  The key is that dogs are selected that would never injure a cat.  This requires a dog that will back down when swatted by a cat. 

Your Dog’s Personality Type Influences How Far It Will Travel

There are a lot of factors that influence the distance a lost dog will travel. One is the actual personality of the dog itself. Dog behavior is a great way to determine how far it might travel before someone rescues it. There are three behavioral categories for lost dogs. These categories are gregarious, aloof, and xenophobic.

• Gregarious Dogs

Gregarious dogs are friendly dogs that are very likely to go directly to the person who calls them. These dogs will generally be found close to home, depending on the terrain, or will be picked up by someone close to where they escaped. Because of their friendliness, gregarious dogs are often adopted by the individuals who find them. 

• Aloof Dogs

Aloof dogs are cautious of strangers and will try avoiding people. Eventually, mainly due to hunger, they’ll accept human contact once they have overcome their fears. While these dogs have been known to travel great distances, they can eventually be enticed with food and patience by experienced rescuers who know how to approach and capture dogs that are very cautious. These dogs are often recovered by rescue group volunteers, and their cautiousness can be mistaken as abuse. Also, aloof dogs are often recovered weeks or months after their escape, and they have the physical appearance (thin, injuries, stickers, ticks, etc.) that they’re homeless, abused, and unloved. 

• Xenophobic Dogs

Xenophobia means “an unreasonable fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange.” Dogs with these personalities are more likely to travel far and so they’re at a higher risk of being hit by cars. Dogs are xenophobic due to genetics and/or frightful experiences when they were puppies. Due to their fearful behavior people make the assumption that they were abused. Even if the dog has ID tags, many well-meaning people that find these dogs will refuse to contact the previous owner. Sometimes xenophobic dogs become so panicky that they’ll even run from their owners. It might be necessary to use other dogs to get close enough to capture them or to use baited dog traps.

Pee In A Bottle To Retrieve Your Pet?

Pet owners are often desperate for sensible measures they can take to help them recover a lost pet. There have been many quirky techniques that have evolved, one of them being the suggestion that the pet owner should spray their urine in the area as a “scent lure” or means to attract a lost dog or cat back home. This technique is not only a potential health hazard and source of disease transmission but it’s also unnecessary and ineffective. 

There’s no scientific basis or research into the validity of this technique when trying to retrieve a dog or cat. In fact, it makes no sense at all! Suggesting one technique that should be used to recover both dogs and cats hasn’t proven to be effective. First of all, the olfactory abilities, responses to scent, behaviors and reactions towards humans when lost are very different between dogs and cats. Dogs are scent-oriented whereas cats are more sound-oriented. Dogs are much more likely to use their noses to investigate things than cats are. Some dogs will respond to people and scent when displaced but most cat won’t. Dogs travel and are picked up by people who determine their fate whereas the nature of lost cats is to hide in silence as a protective measure from predators.

Another reason that it’s unnecessary to deposit your scent in an area is because your scent is already there. A lost dog can use his nose to follow his owner’s scent. He can even use his nose to follow is own scent and backtrack home. Many dogs have done this and will continue to leave home and then return home. But you don’t need to urinate into a spray bottle to deposit your scent in an area because you already have deposited your scent when you breathe and walk through an area. That’s why bloodhounds and other dogs are able to find people…because the human scent is deposited when walking. Cats, on the other hand aren’t going to follow their owner’s scent because they are not oriented to following a scent trail in the same way dogs are. Cats are watcher and pouncers rather than scent followers. 

Many dogs that escape aren’t even going to care whether their owner’s scent is present. This can depend on the dog’s temperament and reason for escape. A dog that escapes to chase a rabbet is going to be focused on the rabbit scent when the prey drive kicks in. A fearful dog that escapes isn’t going to use its nose to explore. When in fear, the section of the brain that processes olfactory cues doesn’t function. 

Another flaw in the urine-spraying idea is it doesn’t take into account the dispersion of the scent in the right direction. Which direction should you pee in the first place and how far and how much? With multiple streets and roads in your area just how would you know where to spray a trail that your dog could actually find and follow? If you’d like to try this nonsensical technique then drink yourself silly so that you have a large supply! 

In reality, it’s more probably that a dog has been picked up by someone who will dictate what will happen to it. A better use of time is to create posters. As for cats, it’s more likely it would be trapped under a neighbor’s house, killed by a predator, or hiding under a deck in fear.

Could Your Pet Have Been Stolen?

People who believe that their pets are stolen and sold for lab research are often animal rights groups opposed to using animals in research. Their intent may be to scare pet owners into supporting their cause, which is to end all research work on animals. Pet theft likely does occur, but not to the degree that everyone thinks. 

Pet owners who believe their pet was stolen and sold to a research lab often don’t search the likely locations where their lost pet might really be. These locations include local shelters, under a neighbor’s deck, or up for adoption at an adoption event at a local pet store.

Believing that a pet has been stolen is a common tunnel-vision theory. Research indicates that in most missing pet cases theft is not very likely. This myth of stolen pets has many people buying into it. It’s a belief perpetuated on the internet and by a few animal welfare organizations that hoards of dogs and cats are stolen every year and sold to research facilities for experiments. The truth is that most animals used in research are provided by dealers who breed them specifically for that purpose. 

The process of selling animals to research could certainly result in unclaimed animals ending up in labs. But there is a misconception that dealers are lurking around neighborhoods looking to snatch animals from their yards in order to sell them to research. 

More lost animals were killed every year by the behavior of owners who believed their pet was stolen for research than were ever actually killed in this way. That’s because many of the pet owners stopped searching believing their pet ended up as an experiment. They stopped aggressively searching in areas where they should be looking. Basically, whatever a pet owner believes has happened to their pet will influence how well they’ll search and how successful they’ll be.

Trapping Techniques Part 2

How do I set the trap?

The trap should be set with about a cup of food on something like a paper plate.  The plate should be placed beyond the trip plate.  Get a piece of cardboard, place it underneath the trap, then make a food trail that leads into the trap and straight to the dish of.  If you use cardboard, the trail of food does not leave a mess when you’re trapping on someone else’s property and it also lets you control where and when you want to bait.  In hot weather make sure there’s a bowl of water in the trap.  If the pet is bonded to humans then place used clothing like socks near the opening of the trap. 

It’s sometimes recommended to cover the top and sides of the trap with a towel while leaving the front and back end open.  The idea here is to create a kind of “tunnel vision” and the animal will want to go through the tunnel.  If you know your pet is the type that enjoys jumping in a cardboard box or brown paper bag it might like the concealment that towels or sheets might offer.  It depends on the animal. Also, newspaper, grass, or dirt can be placed on the inside of the trap for animals that might not like to step on metal wires.

Practice with your trap before putting it to use.  Make sure you understand how the mechanisms work and think about your animal and how to apply the trap to get the best results. Set the rap at night and check on it in the morning.

What foods should I use to set the trap?

Use your pet’s favorite food and the more odor it has the better.  You want something to draw your animal out from hiding even if it’s hiding a few homes away.  If you’re unsure as to what to use try fried chicken strips, bacon, or tuna.

If you trap wild animals, set some food nearby the trap that a raccoon or an opossum might like but that your pet might not like.  Some examples of foods that are turn-offs to domesticated animals include whole grains like corn and oats, alfalfa pellets, or fruits and nuts.  The idea is to fill up the local wildlife with other foods which makes them less likely to eat the food in your trap!

As for insects, such as ants, draw a chalk line around the trap.  Ants will not try to cross the chalk dust to get to the food in the trap.

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