01 Kat Albrecht...The Missing Animal Response Network
To learn more about Kat, click HERE.
Click HERE to learn more about the Missing Animal Response Network.
Help Find Lost Pets (HFLP): Hi Kat, could you describe what your organization does and how it could benefit someone who might need some immediate help?
Kat Albrecht: I got involved in lost pet recovery back in 1996 when my police bloodhound escaped and was missing and lost in the woods. I ended up using another search and rescue dog to track him down and find him. That experience gave me the idea to train dogs to find lost pets. So that’s where things began. I ended up developing a training program called the MAR, or Missing Animal Response course. It’s based on the experience I’ve had in recovering lost pets using search dogs but also encompasses many other topics. Those include forensics, lost pet behaviors, high-tech equipment, tracking, and interpretive bird language. Over the years we’ve discovered the tools that trained people can use to go out and help look for and find missing pets.
I was a police officer/ bloodhound handler, but I was also a search manager involved in search and rescue. I brought those components of the science of finding missing people and applied it towards finding missing pets and found that many of the principles, techniques, and equipment that we’re now using to recover missing pets has been used in finding missing people.
Today, my focus is training people with a goal of having volunteers based in communities all over North America and abroad to help people who’ve lost a pet.
HFLP: So at this point, how expansive is the organization? Can a lost pet owner be ensured that they could find someone that could help them and somewhat close to where they live?
Kat Albrecht: Our network is not as big as I would like it to be. I think part of that is the issue that a lot of people just haven’t heard of our network or our training program. There are a lot of lost-and-found Facebook pages in most communities but not necessarily all communities. MAR-trained people are scattered about the country. The organization is more prominent on the East coast than the West coast or the Midwest. We are looking to expand the training program. Also, we’re working on a scholarship program where we will be able to train people at low cost or no cost in the Midwest and the West coast so that they can catch up with the East coast.
Our website is MissingAnimalResponse.com. People needing help can go there, search the national pet detective directory, and see if there’s anybody listed in their state. Some pet detectives may live in one state but are willing to travel to other states. For example, sometimes someone that lives in Georgia might be listed in Louisiana. Ultimately, we need more people trained. So I’m just out to appeal to people that love animals and want to help people to consider getting involved and getting trained and offering these services in their area.
HFLP: That’s something I’ve noticed myself. Sometimes I may be contacted by someone a few states away and even if commuting is out of the question, a lot can be accomplished over the phone. So it’s important to reach out even if there is a potential problem with the distance. So missinganimalresponse.com is not only a training site but also gives a lot of valuable lost pet tips as well.
Kat Albrecht: We have information on our site, for example, about how cats behave when lost. There’s a difference between the behaviors of an indoor-only cat that escapes outside versus an outside-access cat that’s allowed outside and suddenly vanishes. They can be two entirely different investigations. The way that you look for them and the techniques you use are very different and we coach the pet owners depending on their situation. That’s just one example of two different ways that you would search. They’re both cats but their territories are different and they’re also a territorial animal. They’re different than a parakeet versus a dog or a skittish dog versus a friendly dog. In our training program we teach different methods that would be used to search for animals based not only their species but also their temperament.
Shelter websites will usually only give generic information if you’ve lost your pet. So they’re kind of lumping in a ferret with an iguana and a cat with a dog, and telling you to do the same thing in most cases…post a flyer, check the shelter, do this or do that. They’re not species-specific. That’s what attracts a lot of people to link and come to our website, because we describe the difference in the behaviors based on factors such as terrain, temperament, species, etc.
HFLP: One of the first things I’ll ask a pet owner is to tell me about the personality of their animal, whether it’s a dog, cat, or even a snake. Many pet owners are surprised by that line of questioning but to me it’s critically important.
For example, if you pick up your turtle, will it moves it’s legs and swim in the air or will it hunker down into its shell? Two turtles of the same species might do one or the other. A question as simple as that can determine the strategy of an investigation.
Kat Albrecht: Our training program also gets into the behavior of people. A pet, whether it is a dog, cat, or parrot, is connected to its owner or a guardian in many ways. When that animal is separated from its owner, then the actions the owner takes can often have a big impact on success going forward. Maybe the owner will hire a pet detective or do nothing and hope for the best. Or, they may put out big visible neon posters or little 8.5 by 11 white pieces of paper that nobody notices.
Then there is the behavior of the person who finds the lost animal, the rescuer themselves, and what they think and believe can influence the course of events as well. For example, if someone finds a Yorkie terrier always wanted a Yorkie and decides to keep it (finders keepers), then obviously that decision will prevent the animal from getting back home. So our training program looks at all kinds of fascinating behaviors of both animals and people. So we hope that people come and get trained!
HFLP: Thanks for your time Kat and it was nice to speak with you. I encourage everyone to check out the valuable resources on MissingAnimalResponse.com and consider getting training to help your community!
02 Annalisa Berns...Pet Search and Rescue Investigations
To learn more about Annalisa click HERE.
To see Annalisa in action on Good Morning America, click HERE.
Help Find Lost Pets (HFLP): As a long-time Pet Detective can you offer any advice to someone who has lost their pet but doesn’t have much experience in finding lost animals?
Annalisa Berns: I think one of the most important things for the average pet owner to keep in mind, if their pet goes missing, is that there are so many creative ideas and resources out there even if they aren’t an expert in lost pet behavior. And if they don’t find their pet really quickly, then I recommend that they reach out to people who have more expertise, more time to help in the search, who can consult with them and get their feedback. It’s kind of like you have a car and the car breaks down on the side of the road and you know to check the gas and the battery. But if that doesn’t work, you don’t say, well, the car is a loss and I’m going to move on from it. Instead, you consult a professional, call AAA, have a mechanic come out or you have it towed to a mechanic and they give you a full analysis of what’s wrong with your car.
Annalisa Berns: And I think it’s important for pet owners to realize that they shouldn’t expect themselves to be an expert in animal behavior and especially lost animal behavior. If they have a lost pet that they don’t find quickly, consult with someone who can give them additional insight and recommendations into other things they can do. There are hundreds of techniques out there. Some of them might be a great fit for a certain case, and others might be very much contraindicative of another case. So consult a professional.
The other thing I would recommend is the use of search dogs. Search dogs are a great tool that most people don’t think of using in a search. They really can help, especially in cases in which the pet just disappears into thin air and there are no answers, clues, leads, or sightings. Bringing in the search dogs can help figure out some more pieces of the puzzle. Was it predator involvement? Maybe the pet is still hiding in the area? Maybe the pet headed out and is a far distance away or maybe it was picked up and put into a car? Sometimes getting those answers can also help. So I would say using search dogs is something that pet owners could consider when a pet goes missing.
HFLP: I don’t believe that most people realize the extent to which forensics can help them. But as far as hundreds of techniques, I fully agree and they can vary, as you said, case by case and also depending on the personality of the animal itself as well.
Annalisa Berns: Also consider the terrain. The terrain has a huge impact on what techniques I would recommend to someone. Are we in downtown LA or are we in the middle of a national park and there’s nobody for miles around? So there are a lot of variables. And I personally move away from techniques that are cookie-cutter which means just do X for every single case. I prefer techniques that are specific to the pet, the personality, the terrain, and the owner. The owner might have physical limitations, financial limitations, schedule limitations, or young children which might prevent them from doing a particular technique. So I like to customize and give people specific techniques for what is going to be a match for their situation – not just “here’s a cookie-cutter answer and do these five things for a lost pet”.
HFLP: Again, I don’t think people realize there is a lot beyond just putting up a poster and calling it a day. Most posters I’ve seen leave a lot to be desired, especially if their target audience is a driver who might get a split-second look at it. I’ve also noticed that an individual animal can behave differently in a city terrain as opposed to a more rural setting. So that’s another variable to consider.
Have you had any unique cases recently?
Annalisa Berns: I think every single case I work is different and unique. I haven’t worked two cases that were the same in 16 years. I have worked cases that have similar elements and of course, similar outcomes, but there’s always some sort of nuance. Often one little thing changes and the case could go in a completely different direction. Those kinds of variables could include access to property to search, the scenario itself, or the location.
Annalisa Berns: Here’s one that could be classified as “how is it even possible”? There was an indoor only Persian cat that went missing in a very dense area on a very busy street. To give you a reference, this was one of those streets/highways of four lanes in each direction. The cat was missing for a really long time. The work with the client included search dogs, witness development, etc. She finally found the cat two days ago, four miles away across major highways and at least one freeway. Being an indoor-only cat, there was no clear-cut way the cat could get transported four miles away even by accident. And then to add onto the weirdness, the cat was found very close to a landlord of a nearby property of where the cat went missing. But we can’t figure out a logistical link.
There are a couple of things that the owner credits as being critical in the case. One is that we gave the client a lot of encouragement not to give up. Everybody was telling her it’s long-gone, or a coyote got her, or somebody has taken possession of it and wants to keep it…so just give it up. And we were really consistent with the message that you don’t give up and you should keep looking for your pet.
The other thing that was really paramount is that she did use giant neon posters and major witness development. She did a radius search even though the cat was missing for weeks. So she had to go out to do some leg-work and hang posters. Someone eventually saw the cat and that person’s friend had seen the poster. Because of the poster, they remembered it. And I think that’s the most important thing with witness development is that there has to be a memorable component with the poster.
It doesn’t matter if somebody hands out a hundred flyers because if they don’t remember the information on the flyer, it doesn’t matter. So the poster was memorable enough in that she made it very unique and she wrote LOST PERSIAN. So when this friend saw the Persian cat it was automatic. Very few Persian cats likely go missing in LA. So they called her and she rushed the cat to the emergency vet. It’s shocking that the cat was missing for a grand total of six weeks.
HFLP: The point is that there’s always hope in these situations that logic would otherwise deem hopeless.
Annalisa Berns: Also, strange coincidences happen. Don’t have too much of a laser-focus and discount anything.
Don’t exclude something, especially if you look for your pet and you don’t find it. Go back to the assumptions you made when you first searched and start to do the opposite. So if you thought your pet would never go to the right and you focused on the left, then go back to the right if you don’t find it. It’s very important to take off of any preconceived blinder and consider all possible scenarios. Even an indoor-only cat can somehow end up four miles away. Who knows how, but it happens!
HFLP: And as you mentioned that one right person in the right place who can help shows there’s little serendipity events that can help you which you could never plan for.
Thanks for your time and great tips Annalisa.
Annalisa Berns: You’re welcome!
03 Kimberley Freeman...The Pet Detective for Missing Cats
*Kimberley Freeman of LostCatFinder is a cat specialist who’s found hundreds of cats all over the world, even after being lost for weeks, months, and in one case, two years.
To learn more about Kimberley, click HERE.
Help Find Lost Pets (HFLP): Hi Kimberley, can you offer someone who has lost a pet some advice?
Kimberley Freeman: Yes. But first, I only specialize in cats. So keep in mind, the techniques I use to find a lost cat are different from any other species…and MUCH different than a dog search. From what I see, people often use dog techniques to find lost cats. These rarely work and then the owner gives up.
So for a lost cat situation, let’s start with the flyers. Not only are most too small, they’re placed too high and on phone poles that usually get ignored. Also, they’re busy pictures. We do not need to see the entire bedspread or kitchen table. Crop as tight as possible.
Kimberley Freeman: I typically get sent cute pictures of the cat sleeping or curled up in a ball. What we need is a good standing side view the way the cat would be seen out in the world. Then, get rid of the background in the photo. There are all kinds of software that even the most non-technical person can use to remove background so the image of JUST the cat is clear at a glance.
HFLP: You want the main visual to be the cat without fancy colors or other distractions. The image of the cat should take center stage.
Kimberley Freeman: Absolutely. Sometimes people add QR codes or too much extraneous, unnecessary info. The picture of the cat ends up less than a quarter of the page.
In my opinion, the picture should be as big as you can get it. I would urge everyone who owns a cat right now to get a side-view photo of your cat standing or walking in case you ever need it.
HFLP: Can you tell me about your case involving a cat named Ruby?
Kimberley Freeman: Yes. It’s a great case and lesson for owners with indoor-only cats. Ruby was an orange inside kitty who got out. I found her even though she was miles away!
Here’s what happened. One day, the owner was bringing in groceries and Ruby slipped out into the garage. The owner didn’t realize it. The next morning, after she went to the gym, she realized Ruby was gone. She searched for three days, then heard about me at the local shelter. She asked me to bring my tracking cat over to find a trail. I use a tracking cat instead of a dog is because cats will run from dogs but stay put if a cat comes near.
HFLP: That’s interesting. You’re the first person I’ve heard of that has a tracking cat!
Kimberley Freeman: I think I’m the only person, to my knowledge, who has a tracking cat.
Kimberley Freeman: So, I loaded up my gear and my search cat.
Now, when an indoor-only cat gets out, if we know which door it was, I can put Henry right at the escape point and let him track the scent. But for cats who go in-and-out every day, there are scent trails in all directions rather than a single scent trail from A to B.
So Henry goes with me on indoor-only cases.
We started at the garage door, and Henry went under her car.
Kimberley Freeman: Meanwhile, I’m chatting with the owner, who is telling me…”I went to the gym and, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize she was missing when I left!”
Meanwhile, Henry is still under the car. This was one of his first cases, so my first thought was, oh no, he’s lounging on the job. He’s under the car where it’s nice and cool. So I called him out from under there and we got going, out-and-about around the community. Henry was interested but did not seem to be picking up any kind of trail. I hate to admit, but I started to have doubts that Henry could do this job in the summer heat.
Kimberley Freeman: So we backtracked and I thought…what did Henry do? What was the first thing he did after he got the scent at the threshold of the door? Well, he went under the car! So I decided to get up under her car. It was a Suburban, which is a big SUV. Once I shimmied under there with my flashlight, I spotted three orange hairs caught on the corner of the axle and the skid plate. Orange hairs don’t just magically appear under a vehicle. So that was enough to tell me Ruby may have climbed up into the guts of the Suburban and possibly went for a ride. Ann Marie, the owner, told me the only place she had been was the gym.
So we went to the gym. I let Henry out right where she had parked. Keep in mind this was three-day-old scent. We searched all around, put up signs at the gym, even talked to employees at the nearby shops. No one had seen her, so the next deduction was that she may have fallen out of the truck between the house and the gym. So on the way back, we put up posters at each stop sign and turn she had made along the route. While we were putting up the last poster, a man called and said, “I saw an orange cat in the middle of the road a few days ago. She almost got hit”. We found the location, and it was about 50 feet from one of the intersection posters. So that was enough for me to figure out where to start the search.
Kimberley Freeman: Scanning the first five houses on the street, I decided to start with the one that had the garage door cracked open. I thought, if I was a scared cat, where would I feel safe?
The man who owned the house had an outdoor cat that he fed in the garage. He lived 3 houses from the intersection where she was seen in the road.
We looked around the garage for 20 minutes before we found her. Apparently, the man’s outside kitty had been sharing food with Ruby, unbeknownst to the man.
Ruby was hiding under one of those red Craftsman tool chests on wheels.
HFLP: She knew how to purposely blend in even when she was hiding!
Kimberley Freeman: Yes! She was camouflaged even then! Her tail gave her away, the tip was sticking out of the side. The owner cried when she saw her face, saying “it’s her.”
Ann Marie tried to lure her out with food, but Ruby refused to leave her Craftsman cat cave! We ended up having to lift that thing to get her out because she was not coming out on her own. Ann Marie hugged her, crying into her fur with relief. Once we got her back home, we found missing fur on her side, probably from the pavement. But other than that, she checked out well at the vet …was given some antibiotics and had no broken bones!
So Ruby the cat was found miles from home based on 3 orange hairs.
HFLP: That’s great. Amazing detective work coupled with trusting your intuition.
Kimberley Freeman: Yeah. And I also learned to trust my cat. When he went under the car sniffing, I should’ve been watching!
HFLP: That’s a great story that illustrates the twists and turns a lost pet case can take. Anything can happen! Thanks for sharing.
Kimberley Freeman: You’re welcome. Thank you, Rob!
04 Bonnie Hale...Lost Pet Specialist
To learn more about Bonnie click HERE.
Help Find Lost Pets (HFLP): Hi Bonnie, do you have any advice that you could give someone who may have just lost their pet and doesn’t know where to start?
Bonnie Hale: It’s so important that posters are readable and people just don’t get that. You would never advertise even a yard sale with an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper. Instead, you’d run to Walgreens and get some big neon poster board and write YARD SALE and your address. And then you wouldn’t put pictures of your couch and your swing set and all this stuff that you’re selling. You’d get right to the point. I’ve seen a lot of bad posters hanging out there!
Bonnie Hale: Aside from posters, I’d like to talk about the state of the human brain that is searching for a lost pet. The short version of this is…CALM DOWN. When we’re thinking with our rational logical brain our prefrontal cortex takes over. It’s so advanced in humans and helps us solve problems and relate to people. We find creative solutions when we’re in that prefrontal cortex state of mind. On the flip side, when we’re scared we turn into wild animals and our amygdala takes over forcing us into fight or flight. So then our hands are shaking, our heart is pounding, and our mouth is dry. That is not the state of mind that supports rational creative thought. What it does is shut off all those parts of the brain that are not directly involved in survival. So the brain doesn’t know the difference between a lost pet and a saber tooth tiger bearing down on you. In that case, the amygdala takes over and you just don’t function very well.
Bonnie Hale: So the first thing I usually tell my clients is to please take a minute to calm down. It’s scientifically proven that just three deep breaths will help get you out of a stress state and put you more into a calm state. You’re going to bounce back and forth, of course, but the more you can stay in that calm state the better your brain will work. You’ll be able to think rationally and logically and not just do stupid things that you read on the internet such as putting the litter box outside and hope your cat will come to use it out of habit.
The other reason to stay calm is based on energy. This isn’t some kind of woo-woo telepathic psychic kind of thing I’m trying to describe. This is a truth about how animals receive information. They’re energetic communicators whereas humans are verbal communicators.
Humans do have an awareness of energetic communication as well. If you are standing at the grocery store in line you can feel someone staring at you, right? And you turn around and sure enough they’re staring at you because there’s an energy communication there. Dogs and cats are very sensitive to our energy and since they don’t understand our words they instead try to interpret our tone of voice, body language, and our energy.
I have a really good example of this. I went to San Antonio to help some people search for a lost cat. I didn’t get there until 7:30 PM. So we had 45 minutes of semi-daylight to work before it got dark. There was some scent detected in the next door neighbor’s backyard which I hoped meant that the cat was under their shed. I wasn’t getting a clear “yes” from my search dog, but it seemed like there was enough scent to work with. So I had them do this process that we call “Just Sitting.” During this process I instructed the client and family to bring their lawn chairs, their dinner, and their phones. Then they were to eat, drink, talk, be normal, and be calm.
Then I told them to not constantly yell for their cat…“Jasper, Jasper, Jasper, Jasper” because that doesn’t sound like them or what the cat is used to. It sounds like a panicked person the cat wants nothing to do with! I was supposed to go back in the morning and do more searching. But they texted me about 90 minutes later and said the cat was not in the yard we suspected but rather on the opposite side of the fence. So it jumped over the fence in the next door neighbor’s yard where they retrieved it. Why? Because their energy was normal. It was welcoming. It was calm and it felt safe to the cat. So, you know, job done! But people could do this by themselves!
HFLP: Emotions travel down the leash.
Bonnie Hale: Exactly! And the “leash” is kind of metaphorical. Emotions travel through the air and just how far I don’t know, but I know there have been a number of times when people have hired me to come the following day and miraculously their pet comes home overnight even if it’s been gone for two weeks. I attribute that to a change in the energy. They finally surrendered to the help from a professional and they could then relax into that a little bit. It sends out a different energy that I think pets really pick up on.
HFLP: We’re a society that’s always hustling and always on the go. When I work with people who have lost their pet, especially in the woods, I’ll instruct them to calmly walk through the forest at a quarter of their normal speed. That alone is difficult for a lot of people. Nature doesn’t rush things so it’s like we have to slow down to meet it at its own pace. So I’ll have them make their movements consciously slower. The physical change in the speed of motion helps their emotions get more in sync. Even if they don’t find their pet right away, they enjoyed the process of walking down a path in the woods in a calm, slow fashion.
Bonnie Hale: And with dogs, if you just stop in the woods and spend 15 or 20 minutes in one spot it can be very helpful. Many people are of the mindset that if they go out in the woods and walk all over the place they are distributing their own scent which they hope their dog will pick up on. Well, that’s fine in theory, but not accurate as to how dogs truly use their noses to find things. If you just sit in one spot and allow your scent to drift away from you with the wind and your dog catches that scent, he can follow it right to you versus if you’re walking all around a recreation area or whatever it is, they may not be able to find you. But most people can’t stay calm. It’s in their nature to walk all over the place frantically.
HFLP: A fun exercise for people is to go sit in the woods for an hour or two. If you can keep your breathing low and your movement slow, just sit there and amazing things will happen. The woods will put on a show for you that you never would have expected. You’ll have wild animals come right up to you simply out of their own curiosity.
Bonnie Hale: Sometimes people are so hysterical and that hysterical energy is very negative and they swear they can’t stop doing what they’re doing. Energetically, you know, they can’t pull it together.
I tell people something important and occasionally it helps. I tell them that “If you could pull yourself together you could save your pet’s life. Her life depends on you calming down.”
People will do anything for their pet so it can be difficult to stay calm.
HFLP: It’s as if they feel they are failing their pet by NOT being in frantic state. It’s counter-intuitive to train someone out of that mindset. It’s very difficult, but important. You have to look at it like “your pet is missing whether you’re frantic or not so choose to be calm.”
Bonnie Hale: The other thing that I was going to say is that I know as well as anybody that the internet has made life easier and better in so many ways. Most clients who call me spend the first two or three minutes telling me what they’ve done already. They think I’ve never heard it before! The point that I’m making is that about 90% of what people tell me they’ve already accomplished is having posted their lost pet on every available website that they can find. That’s all well and good but in terms of actual pet return rates only a very select few of those returns come from the thousands of internet postings that people are doing.
Why? Because the person who sees your dog as they’re driving along at 70 miles an hour on the freeway doesn’t suddenly pull over and start scanning those hundred websites that you just posted your dog on. If you give them a poster that’s right in front of their face they might actually call you. And so I think people spend so much energy thinking that the internet is going to save the day. Of course sometimes it does, but it’s best to play the odds with the most success rates.
HFLP: Well as they say…”busyness is a form of laziness.” I say that harshly with a lot of understanding. I think it’s more proper to say “busyness is a form of misdirected anxiety” when it comes to lost pet cases.
Bonnie Hale: I find a lot of cats on the client’s own property. And usually the client will be somebody who’s not slept a wink in three nights because she’s been up posting on websites and going back and checking the comments and trying to get in touch with the people who thought they saw this or that. That being said, it’s also so hard to really get in touch with the person who posted a comment. So she’s worn herself out and then I find her cat literally in her own garage, or under his own shed, or under the engine compartment of his own vehicle. So that would be my other suggestion and that is to ease up on the internet and get out there and physically search.
So I’ll give a plug to lost pet professionals and it would be this…if you can’t calm down then I can. I can use my rational brain because, although I’m looking for your pet, it’s not my pet.
Believe me; I turn into my own worst client when I have one missing. I have called another pet detective and said, “Oh my God, talk me through this!” I call another pet detective because I realize I’m not thinking straight at that moment. It’s about asking for help from someone whose brain is working rationally and who also has a ton of lost pet experience. That’s what can really turn things around.
HFLP: Thank you very much for your advice!
Bonnie Hale: You’re welcome!
05 Teddy Henn...Long Island Lost Dog Search & Rescue
*Teddy Henn of Long Island Lost Dog Search and Rescue is an expert trapper who specializes in lost and very hard-to-catch dogs. He has developed a great reputation as his dog Winston has had numerous “walk up finds.”
To learn more about Teddy and how to contact him, click HERE.
Help Find Lost Pets (HFLP): Hi Teddy, thanks for spending some time with me. Do you have any advice for people or an interesting case lately?
Teddy Henn: First we start off by making a good flyer. Many people put way too much wording, even paragraphs worth of information, on a poster that also includes a small, horrible picture often in black and white! Sometimes you can’t even make out that it’s a dog! We keep it simple – big capital letters across the top that read LOST DOG in red letters, a nice picture of the dog and on the bottom will contain info as to where the dog escaped from or was last seen. Then under that a contact phone number, again as big as possible. Less is best in this situation…just the minimum amount of info with a good photo taking center stage.
On Long Island, I’ve noticed a lot of lost-animal “search parties” that seem to form. I don’t mind people having search parties long as they stay away from the woods. I’d prefer that large groups of people avoid the woods because as a trapper, the less “noise” that is brought into the main area where I search, the better. And that area is typically the woods!
About 95% of the dogs I bring home are because of a trap. I also use a search dog. My dog has had 18 walk-up finds. That being said, a search dog is just one tool in the toolbox.
I’ll describe a recent case out of Jones Beach. A powerful businessman for whom I used to work, named Donald, lost his dog, a Goldendoodle. He called me up the next day after the dog disappeared and told me that he had 200 people out looking all over the place. He also had a police helicopter search the area but still couldn’t find her.
HFLP: TWO HUNDRED people and a police helicopter for a lost dog? This guy has serious connections!
Teddy Henn: “When I got back to the parking lot,” he said, “I saw a suspicious car take off abruptly. I think he took her!” I said “Donald, what makes you think that?” When we lose a pet our minds take us to any number of usually untrue possibilities.
“She’s probably still there and hiding.” When an animal wants to turn invisible, it turns invisible. “Let me meet you there in the morning and we’ll search together.” So the next morning I start the hour-and-a-half trek to meet him and then he calls me when I was about 5 minutes away. He said “I’m here with a friend and 5 police officers and they’re all trying to catch her.”
“Shit!” I said. “The last thing we want is to have people trying to catch her because she’ll run away from them!”
People mean well and have good-hearted souls but they don’t get it! Sometimes, in a stressful situation, dogs will run away from their owners. This story is a perfect example of that. So he went in there searching without much of a plan and full of nervous emotion. I flew my drone, with a zoom-in camera, for an hour but didn’t find anything. My drone works well on railroad tracks, beaches, and golf courses in which the terrain doesn’t have a lot of cover. In the woods drones aren’t as useful because the canopy blocks visuals of the ground.
HFLP: So you actually have to physically go in to a wooded area.
Teddy Henn: So Donald went in and walked around and then determined, somehow, that the dog was two miles away at a neighboring park. I said “Donald, before you leave, do have anything that contains the dog’s scent? I have my search dog with me and he might be able to help.”
He gave me a blanket his dog often used and I had my dog get a whiff of the scent and then bam! My dog then pulled me right to where the cops had chased her – through the beach grass, brush, and then through the dunes. After that he pulled me through a marsh! This was winter time so there was an ice layer over three inches of water. And my dog is pulling me at a hundred miles an hour through all of this! I know, however, that he’s on-scent and so he’s breaking through the ice and I’m breaking through the ice right behind him with a 30 foot lead. And then he stops abruptly and smells something and as I walk up I see it’s fresh dog poop. I know he’s on-track now. I told him “back to work” and he again pulled me through more beach grass, a marsh area with ice water, and around a couple of dunes. We came to an area with knee-high beach grass and then I see a dog’s head sticking out of the grass, staring at us!
So I froze. I didn’t want to take another step because most likely this dog was going to bolt. I called the owner and had him to come to my location. It took a while to reach me and when he finally did, wearing his nice dress shoes, he was surprised at the dense vegetation the dog was able to go through with me right on her tail. There was a lot he didn’t understand. I told him that his dog went through the vegetation and I went through it as well. Now he had to go through it too! I already had a talk with him about dogs and survival mode – that, when frightened, they run from everyone. They see everyone as a threat when they’re in that state of mind.
“Plus, he’s already been chased by your friends and the police. You have to get down low, sit on the ground, and get her to approach you. And most likely she won’t recognize you at first. Say something to her that you normally say at home that makes her really excited. For example, when I tell my dog that we’re going to take a trip to the park, he jumps up and down.”
Dogs can sense the anxiety in your voice as well as your energy level. So I had him just sit down and sound relaxed and happy. He started to move closer to her as she was peeking out from under the brush. She was just staring at him. As he closed the distance to about 20 feet away, his dog, to his surprise, started growling at him.
At this point he started crying; literally crying, with tears running down his face. He couldn’t believe that the love of his life was growling at him. It was winter so I told him to take his hat off so she can better recognize him. Also, dogs often won’t recognize their owner unless they can smell them first. So he took off his hat and gloves. He sat there and continued asking the dog “you want your treat? Come here, girl!” After 25 minutes of the same repetitive phrase I told him to say something different.
He took his coat off and he threw it on the ground towards her. Now here’s this powerful businessman sitting on the ground in tears. The dog went over and sniffed the coat. She then realized it was him and ran over and jumped in his arms.
Teddy Henn: A dog like that, even though it’s very connected to its owner, is so frightful to the point that even the owner calmly talking to it, the dog was still hesitant to come. Protective instincts were kicking in.
Often the client is a necessary part of the recovery process. I often need to have a scared dog recognize his owner whether it is by smell, sound, or sight. It’s usually the owner who doesn’t follow the script. Emotions take over and sometimes make things worse than when we started!
It’s a process. And I understand the tight bonds people have with their animals. If it was my pet I wouldn’t be a rational thinker either!
HFLP: Thanks for giving us great advice Teddy!
Teddy Henn: You’re welcome!
06 Bob Swensen...Lost Animal Resource Group
*Bob Swensen is the co-founder of LARG (Lost Animal Resource Group) which is a volunteer-based East Coast organization that tracks, finds and humanely captures lost family pets, stray dogs, cats and other animals. LARG has a passion for saving at-risk animals and helping families. Primarily based in VA and MD, LARG has a wide reach and has solved lost animal cases around the world.
To learn more about Bob and the Lost Animal Resource Group click HERE.
Help Find Lost Pets (HFLP): Hi Bob, thanks for meeting with me. Do you have any lost pet advice or interesting cases?
Bob Swensen: Oh boy, there are so many interesting cases! I got into this because a pet that my wife and I fostered and adopted out escaped. The person who adopted the pet literally did nothing. The adopter called us and we immediately went to help. Once we started saying, “We’ve got to start by getting posters up” she literally just walked in her house and closed the door. So we began a journey of figuring out what to do. We started talking to people and friends and learning about posters, feeding stations, cameras, traps, and trackers. I think there are enough lost pet pages, but usually people aren’t on them until their pet escapes and then they don’t know what to do.
Bob Swensen: They usually ask a friend or something like that. One of the cases I worked on was a lost dog in my area named Roxy. The daughter got in a car accident with the dog in the car. The dog had jumped out and so we were coaching them. First, get the flyers up and do the feeding station because it was only a half mile to a mile from their house. We talked to the owners…”your dog’s probably in survival mode in which case the dog probably will not recognize you or come to you. Calling her name is generally a threat to the animal. I wasn’t involved on a day-to-day basis because they were out putting posters up and doing everything they had to do. I found out after we caught the dog, a couple months later that they had been out yelling and calling. They were doing everything they were not supposed to do!
Bob Swensen: Later I asked them “What could we have done or said that would have made you understand that going out and calling and chasing is a bad thing?” They said, “That was our dog! We always believe that our dog would hear our voice and just come running into our arms.” So now what I do when I coach people is I say, “All right, do the SNYPE.” SNYPE is a term we coined which means to “S” stop and pause for a second. Then “N” stands for no chasing or calling for most cases. I say most unless it’s a happy, friendly- go-lucky type of dog and you know that when you call it it’ll come. But, generally, especially when the dog is in survival mode, no calling and no chasing. “Y” represents yummy food, scent articles, and liquid smoke from the house that was the point of escape to try to attract or draw the dog back. Next is “P” for posters everywhere and “E” stands for being engaged with the community and with social media to create awareness.
The Father of Roxy’s family is a graphic artist and he created this…
It’s designed to educate someone whose emotions are in overdrive when their pet escapes and they are flailing in the wind, trying everything they can.
Bob Swensen: Yesterday, in Chicago, a woman lost her cat. And she was literally out there for 18 straight hours looking. And people think that just by going out and doing all this activity, they’re going to find their pet. Generally, that’s not the case because, whether it’s a cat or dog, if they’re out there in the first place it’s because they got scared of something. They’re not going to just show up on your doorstep. And if you’re actively going out there calling, yelling, chasing, they’re just going to run further away, hide, and not come back.
So, part of the “pause” and the “S” of SNYPE is for the owner to do some research. That is, go ahead and do the posters and the feeding stations, but also research for yourself what survival mode is for dogs and cats as well as calming signals for dogs.
Bob Swensen: So I can tell somebody all day long that they shouldn’t chase their dog. I have them Google it for themselves so that they can see multiple sources telling them the same thing, I’m hoping that is enough to make them at least stop and think. So in this way Google will back me up with a second and third opinion. It’s hard to get through to them because they want so badly to go out and just find and catch their lost pet.
HFLP: Emotion is a strong thing at a moment like that. I would also probably do everything wrong until I got control of myself!
Bob Swensen: It’s crazy! Sometimes you have to learn about the people you’re working with. That is, who they are, what they do for a living, etc. In doing that you can something find out more about the lost pet. Is it a happy dog? Is it a skittish dog? What kind of dog was it and then what were the circumstances?
A dog might escape and is motivated by an animal it’s chasing. At some point, the dog will realize it couldn’t catch the deer or the rabbit. Now – how do I find my way home? A dog chasing another animal might be a little different than a pet that got out that was scared but the principles, I think, are the same or similar.
So first I try to learn about the lost pet owner and the pet. Sometimes you can use who they are or what they do to try to coach them. For example, one woman was an ER nurse. So I said “if that dog was one of your patients was a patient or one of your patient’s kids, what would you tell the parents?” So try to engage they’re thinking and possibly hit them where they work or what they’re good at.
Here’s one – a blind dog that the family takes out on walks on a 500 acre property. And they walked this blind dog without a leash.
HFLP: Ummm…ok…not sure how to respond to that one!
Bob Swensen: Yeah. I mean, I’m thinking, wait a minute here! You can’t judge them, especially in the height of emotion. They had 10 people out searching. So I suggested that instead of having people search, look up survival mode and then delegate. Give each person a job. The most calm, cool-headed thinking people are to go out and call gently and quietly, and you go out looking for water sources. Maybe another person or persons set up a feeding station. That entails cooking bacon, putting out the food, the water, and the scent articles. Then another person can create the posters. So if you delegate, you get them engaged in a process. Sometimes that takes the drama and emotion out of the situation because you’re giving everyone something to do and you are the manager/director of the tasks.
HFLP: And you’d be directing a team in a positive, efficient way rather than sitting at a computer and posting everywhere. I think what you’re instructing people to do would be a better use of their time. More bang for the buck, so to speak.
Bob Swensen: Exactly. We literally get calls from all over the country and world. That includes Canada and a few cases in England and there’s a lot you can do remotely to coach people. It’s not brain surgery – we’ve done this and we know lost pet behavior. Of course, it doesn’t work for every pet, but for the most part it’s a good guide. It’s not something that people can understand. It’s just they don’t have experience when their pet gets out. So it’s calming them down and getting them to think and process and learn the procedures that you’re trying to give them.
Bob Swensen: Cats, especially, are kind of easier to coach in a way because indoor cats generally don’t go further than a couple of blocks. People panic, however, when their cat’s been out for four hours. Understand that most lost pets are trying to find home. Either they’re afraid to come home or they went through a traumatic or scary experience. So it just takes time for them to kind of cool off a little bit, hunker down, and then at some point they come to the conclusion that it’s time to find home. But unfortunately, like we’ve talked about, most people go out and yell and scream and chase and follow which just pushes that animal further away. We’ve even had people on 4-wheelers and big trucks trying to chase down skittish dogs that have fun away!
HFLP: Great. Well, thank you very much. All right. Nice talking to you. Good. Have a great day.
Bob Swensen: You too. Bye.
07 Balynda Brown...Bravo K911
Balynda Brown of Bravo K911 is a Raleigh, NC native and has been in the world of dogs all of her life. She began early on showing her family’s Australian Terriers in conformation. She went into competitive obedience where she took her two toy poodles to the top of the obedience charts. She has judged, competed in and taught in many other dog sports from dock diving, lure coursing and terrier racing to Fast CAT, tracking and nose work. With all of this experience, she knew when she found a program to teach her dog to track for lost pets she was up to the challenge and she had just the dog that needed a job…Bravo.
To learn more about Balynda and Bravo click HERE.
Help Find Lost Pets (HFLP): Hi Balynda, thanks for speaking with me today. Do you have any recommendations for pet owners and an interesting case of yours to share?
Balynda Brown: The first thing I want to know when people call and reach out to me is what they’ve lost. Have they lost a dog, cat, bearded dragon, or whatever it happens to be. I’ll want to talk to them and find out what’s going on. So then I can decide how best to help them. I do have a tracking dog but that’s not always the solution. I’m not someone to just run out and say, I’ll be right there with Bravo” (my tracking dog). I usually like to give them a chance to try the basics first. That means getting their posters up, which can be a huge ordeal in and of itself. With posters, there’s a lot to consider based on the situation.
Balynda Brown: Another thing I really try to do first is to help them get the pet home before taking Bravo out. It’s nice to keep in touch with the family and help them and give them the support that they need. Then I’ll decide that if it’s been 48 hours and they have no sighting I’ll offer to bring Bravo in so we can get a better location. The biggest thing that people don’t understand about tracking dogs is that they don’t just walk right up on their pet like a magic laser beam. Our main job is to get them in the right direction; get them in the right location. I like to be able to tell them “Your pet has been in this vicinity.” So I’d like to give them a nice perimeter and say, “This is where your pet’s been and this is where we need to look. Or these are places I would not bother looking right now. Let’s focus on this area. Let’s focus our posters, feed stations, and our cameras here.” I’d say 80% of the time or more we end up isolating the pet to an area. So it’s not always just that we’re going to walk up and say, “Here’s your dog.”
Balynda Brown: Another thing I like to use are calming signals. I’d say I get about 50% or so of my pets back with calming signals. The first thing I do is send them Kat Albrecht’s video on the subject of calming signals. Then I will go to a box (cage) trap. And then I go to my missy trap (a large humane trap for capturing skittish dogs). A lot of times when they get the pet back, I’m on the other end of the phone, you know, talking them through it. So that’s, that’s an exciting part for me. I mean, I love it. I love to find the dogs and I love to help the dogs and their owners. Pet Detectives provide a lot of emotional support for the family and how important it is for them to have us then help them to remain calm.
HFLP: I know I’d need support myself if I lost my own pet. I wouldn’t be thinking straight even though I do know a lot of techniques.
Balynda Brown: I’ll lose mine in the house and I get panicked thinking they’ve escaped outside and I catch myself running around, acting crazy. It’s hard.
One thing I’ve noticed, and I’ve given a lot of talks to vet hospitals and rescue groups about this, is the need for preventative measures. That is, preparing for your pet to get lost even it if hasn’t yet. One of the first things I talk about are collars and leashes. The best thing you can do is to use a Martingale-style collar (a type of collar that gets tighter only when the dog pulls) or a slip lead (also referred to as a Martingale leash that includes a loop at the end of it that is used as a collar for the dog) if your pets are going to be leaving the house under any circumstance. Even my 5-pound poodles wear a Martingale collar when they leave the house. It’s just too risky without it.
Balynda Brown: I’ll have them wear it whether I’m carrying them in my arms or not. Who knows if I’ll fall or trip or whatever. So yeah, if I’m leaving the house with my dogs, they have on a slip lead or they all are wearing their Martingale collars. I can I put it right on with their other collars. They have the regular collar with their name tag but when they’re walking they have the Martingale collar on for safety.
Balynda Brown: Rescue groups could use a lot of coaching and going over how to do the leashes. With the COVID situation we’ve had, I’ve had so many groomers and vet hospitals that have lost dogs and cats. People bring in cats and hand over their carrier to the vet tech, but they hadn’t had that carrier out in 15 years and it just falls apart. Or, they hand over their dog that’s not wearing a Martingale collar or slip lead and the dog quickly gets loose and takes off.
Balynda Brown: Next, I’d like to discuss scent items, or what I call valid scent items. First, people need to understand what a valid scent item means and the need to have one. A box of dirty cat litter or a bag of dog poop is not quite what I mean!
HFLP: This falls under one of the proactive items you mentioned earlier.
Balynda Brown: As soon as I find a client’s pet that’s been lost, I try to impress upon the owners the need for a Martingale collar, a GPS collar, and scent items on all of their animals. I have five dogs and three cats and they share everything. So if one of mine were to go missing I would probably have nothing to give a tracker. It’s important to have, on hand, a scent item of each of your pets.
HFLP: So a valid scent item is unique to each animal such as a blanket, shirt, or something the animal might sleep on regularly. Is it something that somebody could put in a plastic bag and store away just in case?
Balynda Brown: Yes. A bag of fur also works. Fur is not as easy to obtain for all animals. Owners of long-haired cats and dogs have an easier time with this. You can get the fur right out of a brush. That’s what I have people do. For my pets, I took a cotton swab or a cotton round and I’d rub each individual pet while wearing a glove. I rub the pet very well; his mouth, his ears, his bottom, the bottoms of his feet all over on two or three cotton balls. I’ll then put them in a Ziploc bag with the animal’s name and date on it, put it in the freezer, and change it out every six months.
Balynda Brown: So if you look in my freezer, you’ll see bags of poodle fur. Each poodle has a bag of fur with his name on it. And each cat has its own bag. So if I lose a cat, I’ll grab my cat bag and off we go. Everybody who has a pet, and especially more than one pet, should certainly get a valid scent item for each pet. The owner could be out of town and if the pet sitter is at home this could be a great head start if a pet goes missing. I would also suggest scent items to be used by groomers and pet boarders. It should be part of the animal-intake process.
HFLP: Great idea. I’ll start being more diligent about doing that for my own pets. So tell me about your case involving Ollie.
Balynda Brown: One of my first cases involved a dog named Ollie, a lab mix, that went missing in Fayetteville, NC. He went missing in December of 2019 and I was introduced to the case in February of 2020. Initially, he bolted out of the front door of his home while being pet sit by family members. Ollie’s family, Anna & husband Michael, was in the military. They looked for several weeks and also had a large group of volunteers, who they called the A-Team, helping them with the search. Suddenly, in January, they were re-stationed to Colorado. It was difficult, but they had to leave Ollie behind and continue their search from afar. As military-minded people, their mentality was to “leave no man (or dog) behind!” Anna first called me in February and asked if I’d be be willing to look for their dog while they were in Colorado.
Balynda Brown: I should mention that this case involved an “animal communicator.” An animal communicator is similar to a psychic, but works with animals instead of people. I know a lot of people aren’t fans of animal communicators, so think of that what you will. Anna wanted to know if I would go check out the places where the animal communicator suggested Ollie may have been. I said, “What the heck, sure!”
Balynda Brown: I met with the group of volunteers, The A-Team, when I arrived. Anna also had in her possession a lot of material/notes from the animal communicator who explored a lot of places on her own while looking for Ollie’s scent. Initially, I didn’t find anything as there wasn’t much to work with. Next I went to the location of the last sighting, which was now probably close to three weeks prior. Typically I try to stay within a 14 day period of the last sighting and we were now at about three weeks. Nevertheless, I took Bravo to the place of that last sighting. To my surprise, he started tracking. So I knew I still had scent there and I shouldn’t still have had scent there. The scent should have pretty much dissipated at that point. So I was inclined to believe that the dog was still in the same area.
Balynda Brown: Since it was a very populated area, I thought it was crazy that I could still find scent after such a long period of time. I also didn’t know why anyone hadn’t seen a big lab mix in the area either. As a pet detective, I never want to doubt myself or my dog. But I just didn’t have complete confidence that Ollie was still in the area. Could he still be running around the same place after almost two months? It seemed hard to believe. Anyway, as there wasn’t any more I could do at that time, I went home.
I assume Anna had been in contact with the animal communicator again because a week later I got another call and was asked to go out and check a few new places. So I went back out again. And this time I was searching about two miles from where I was the last time. Bravo started tracking and eventually we ended up in the woods sitting on an old chimney remaining from a home that had fallen apart over time. I didn’t know where I was. Bravo stopped right there and let me know that the scent ended there.
So I called Anna and Michael and said, “I’m at a chimney in the woods.” Anna said, “What do you mean you’re at a chimney?” I said, ”I don’t know. I’m in the middle of the woods at a broken-down old chimney.” And she was shocked.
Unbeknownst to me, the week I had been away they had been working with the animal communicator again. The animal communicator repeatedly said that Ollie “saw” a red chimney and that he was sleeping at a fire place. Anna said they had been looking for this red chimney for weeks and couldn’t find it. Coincidentally, I was sitting right on it! It had then been two and a half months since Ollie’s escape.
I suggested that we hanging posters again. Bravo clearly had the dog’s scent which meant, to me, that Ollie was still out there. I have no idea why nobody had seen him, but he’s here, somewhere. I must say, a lot was working against us. It was almost March, the family lived far away in Colorado, and the COVID situation was just starting up.
In the beginning of March, I got a call from Anna and she said, “We have Ollie on camera!” This was the first time he’d been spotted on camera since they lost him on December 2nd. As it turned out, a homeless couple that lived in tents in the woods, Jesse & MarQuell, needed to go to the store to buy their pit bull some dog food. At the time, they were rationing their food three ways, for the two of them and the pit bull. So they walked up to the store and right there in the window was a poster of Ollie!
Balynda Brown: They called the number on the poster and said “We’ve been feeding that dog for a month.” That meant they were now rationing their food 4 ways in order to help feed Ollie. At first, we weren’t really sure if we believed them, but the video proved it to be true. On hearing the news, Anna immediately flew in from Colorado. I picked her up at the Raleigh-Durham airport and drove her to Fayetteville. At this point Ollie had been missing for 104 days. During the drive, we immediately started practicing calming signals. I told Anna that Ollie’s been missing and stressed for a long time now, so even though he’s her dog he might not recognize her right away.
Balynda Brown: I said to Anna, “Let’s sing a song.” I wanted to get her more into “singing mode” instead of “calling the dog by his name” mode. So here I was driving to Fayetteville with Anna, who I just met for the first time in person, and we were singing songs in the car! We were trying to find a good song to use, one with the right tone. She finally came up with a song that was good. I said “Sing that song softly to Ollie when you see him.”
We finally arrived at the end of the first day and met the homeless couple. Jesse and MarQuell said that Ollie always came at six o’clock to eat. They had never been able to pet him. They fed him every day at six and six and they couldn’t get within a hundred feet of him. They would put the food out, leave the chimney with their pit bull, allow Ollie to eat, and then they would come back later.
It was about 6, so Anna went to the chimney location and Ollie appeared! Clearly frightened, he took one look at her and ran away. So Anna totally understood the necessity of using calming signals since Ollie didn’t recognize her.
Balynda Brown: Anyway, we grilled bacon that entire night, filling the air with a scent any dog would like. We knew Ollie would be back at six o’clock in the morning but we wanted to try to entice him back earlier. Also, we placed a lot of Anna’s clothes all around the campsite so Ollie could smell them. That night the camera picked up activity of Ollie coming to the camp site and marking (aka as urinating) every piece of clothing that we had laid out. So I said “He is claiming.” Anna took it to mean that Ollie didn’t like her. I said “I’m pretty sure it’s a sign he recognizes you. He is claiming you as his Mommy and knows your scent, so it’s a good sign!”
Balynda Brown: The next morning Anna took her spot and was seated out by the chimney at six o’clock. Ollie soon appeared. I was communicating with Anna the entire time on the phone. He took a look at her and started to run. As he started to run, Anna singing. However, it wasn’t the song we had chosen! She picked the song that I said specifically not to sing! It’s horrible song!
Anna blamed her sudden last-minute song change on her husband Michael. Every time they would take Ollie on a walk they’d sing that particular song so she decided to give it a shot. So she sang…”Let’s go for a walky-walk! It’s time for a walky-walk! Let’s go for a walky-walk!”
Over and over she repeated the lines of that awful song. Suddenly Ollie stopped, whipped his head around, and stared at Anna from about 200 feet away. I told Anna “Keep singing! Keep singing!” She continued. Ollie started darting around in strange zig-zag motions so it was having some kind of effect. Something inside of Ollie was triggered.
Balynda Brown: Then he started running in circles around her all the while screaming, crying, and making God-awful noises. As he circled, he gradually came closer to her. Finally, he just pounced on her! SEE BELOW…be sure to watch to the end…
Balynda Brown: As soon as he pounced on her, the ordeal was over and he was back to his old self. All-in-all Ollie was missing a total of 105 days. He seemed to snap right back to the Ollie that she knew all along. He let all of us pet him.
HFLP: Wow, awesome! Happy-ending lost pet cases often involve luck, coincidence, persistence, and some kind of X-factor that can’t be explained. It seems your case had a bit of all of those. Knowing that, you just can’t give up as anything can happen.
Balynda Brown: That was one of those cases that included just about everything – a military family who lived out of town, an animal psychic/communicator, helpful homeless people, the successful use of posters and technology…etc. etc.
As for Jesse & Marquell, we took care of them and are still taking care of them a year-and-a-half later. We take food and necessities out to them in the woods. We also had their pit bull neutered, given a check-up, and administered heartworm medication.
HFLP: Thank you very much for your time Balynda, that was a heartwarming ending to a long case!
Balynda Brown: You’re welcome!
08 Lisa Willems...The Feline Finders
Lisa Willems, of The Feline Finders, is a Certified Missing Animal Response Technician/Pet Detective through the Missing Animal Response Network. She’s also a member of the “Association of Companion Animal Behavior Counselors” organization. It is her goal and passion to assist pet owners in finding their lost and missing pets.
To learn more about Lisa click HERE.
Help Find Lost Pets (HFLP): Hi Lisa, can you offer a tip or have you had any interesting cases lately?
Lisa Willems: Sure here’s one – just because you see or there are coyotes in the area does not mean that they have your dog or your cat.
HFLP: I hear a lot about coyotes and it’s a conclusion many people jump to immediately.
Lisa Willems: Recently I had a walk-up find in very thick woods. It was a cat was missing for 11 days. We were going through thick woods and there were many downed trees that we could not cross. So we had to get in a car and drive around to another lady’s house to come in from the other side. That’s where my dogs led off. As we were coming around and into this lady’s yard, she said “I just want you to know there’s a coyote sitting in the backyard about 50 yards back.” That was 10 AM. The coyote stood up and looks at us. So of course both the pet owner and myself were thinking the worst.
Lisa Willems: Then I said “Hold on – a coyote sighting doesn’t mean it attacked your cat.” And so we trekked on through the woods, my dogs picked the scent up and then ended up in front of the downed trees that we couldn’t get past. I looked up and suddenly I saw the cat walking along one of the downed trees. Before seeing the cat I had prepared myself for the worst, especially after having seen such a brazen coyote nearby. So when it comes to coyotes, just because they’re in the area doesn’t mean they’re always snatching lost pets.
HFLP: …a lot of imaginary attacks can be attributed to coyotes and hawks!
Lisa Willems: I don’t know if that lady was feeding the coyote or not, but who knows?
Also, I know it’s common in the lost-pet world, but even so it’s still worth mentioning, is to never underestimate the power of large posters. I stress that to everyone.
I believe in flyer-ing door-to-door as well, especially for disabled folks or those who have trouble getting around easily. Large-scale postcard mailers can easily be set up with USPS and can be very helpful. It equates to covering a huge amount of distance by foot. I have a lot of elderly ladies as clients who can’t easily walk around when their cats escape. I also offer a postering service in that I’ll go put them up for people who can’t do it for themselves.
HFLP: I could see how a postcard service would help in covering an area much larger than anyone could cover by simply walking around. It would work well for people who even don’t have physical limitations. It’s almost as if it could be an added bonus to any kind of search someone does.
Lisa Willems: They really work well in rural places. I applied it once when I had a serval lost in rice fields down in Humnoke, Arkansas. Actually, this is a current ongoing case.
HFLP: Humnoke, Arkansas? I’ve never heard of it but that sounds as out-of-the-way as you can get! No offense to the citizens of Humnoke!
Lisa Willems: Yeah! It’s just a large area with scattered houses here and there. The serval owner lives in San Diego and the trainer lost it. It was just a mess. And so she’s going to be using the postcards as well to try to cover more of the town area in case it traveled in that direction. I went out tracked and found two piles of his scat, which was a good sign, but didn’t find any serval! The rice fields are being harvested right now so it’s going to be tough.
Lisa Willems: We wound up trying to bait it with filet minions.
HFLP: I wish someone would bait me with filet mignon!
Lisa Willems: A very high-class serval indeed! It didn’t work. We had to use chickens and that didn’t work either.
HFLP: For baiting do you typically do a live animal?.
Lisa Willems: Not usually, no. When baiting cats I usually like to use either catnip, mackerel, or sardines. For dogs I use chicken, smoked chicken, or chicken broth. I then put scent items up in the trees.
Lisa Willems: I also have another unusual case, a cat named Kenta that’s been missing for two years and two months. He is a bengal cat and he’s missing out Joshua Tree, in the desert. And he is surviving! His owners were using Deborah Cook out of Phoenix, Arizona, who is a friend of mine and is better-trained to do searches. I’m participating.
HFLP: So this is a case that’s still ongoing?
Lisa Willems: Yes! It’s still ongoing and the owner had just seen Kenta again. The owner is actually going to buy some property that has an Airbnb on it so he can stay there for the time we track and set traps.
HFLP: He’s going to buy land and an Airbnb for the purpose of finding his cat? Wow!
Lisa Willems: Yeah, dedicated! So this owner has done something interesting and I’m praying it works. You know those little handheld fans that you can just hold up to your face? He took one of those apart and attached a cat toy that chirps. He then purchased a hamster wheel at PetSmart and attached the hamster wheel onto the little battery powered fan. He put the little chirping mouse in it and turns it on. It will go for about four days. So we’re baiting Kenta with that.
HFLP: Any success so far with that? Is there any indication that it’s working?
Lisa Willems: I don’t know that he’s put it up yet but all indications are that it will work well.
HFLP: It’s amazing that the cat is still in that area and visible. It’s a good sign. Cats can be survivors and in this case, thriving.
Lisa Willems: Many people give up too soon. I’ve searched for indoor-only cats that nobody has seen for six weeks and then suddenly they pop up on a game camera.
HFLP: Often a pet owner’s friends want them to feel better, and have good intentions, but are encouraging the owner to give up their search too soon. We also have to learn to stop applying “people time” to animals. What I mean is that a day for a human can be nothing, timewise, for an animal. It’s completely different.
Lisa Willems: Neighbors are the same way. When you go knock on a neighbor’s door saying, “Hey, can I search your property?” They might reply “I just want you to know there was a coyote running across the fence the other day. So your cat’s probably gone.”
HFLP: It’s a protective mechanism. People race to the worst case scenario in order to shield themselves emotionally.
Thanks for the great advice today Lisa, and let me know how the search for Kenta goes!
Lisa Willems: I sure will! Thanks!
More Coming!