Owners often ruin their chances of recovering their lost dogs by behaving in the wrong way. Some develop “wait and see” tactics and by the time they start looking the critical first few hours to locate the dog are gone. Others become laser focused on bad theories.

For example, it might be hasty to think that a lost dog was “sold to research” when in actuality it was rescued and put up for adoption through a local adoption event. In believing they’ll never see their dog again, they go through grief avoidance and give up their search efforts. When feeling helpless and alone they become the victims of others who rebuke them and tell them “it was just a dog” or “you’ll never find your dog.”

The level of human-animal bond will influence the recovery efforts of a lost dog. People with a strong human-animal bond will go to extremes to find their lost pet. They’ll post flyers, visit shelters, and contact rescue groups while holding full-time job and family responsibilities. On the other hand, people with a weak human-animal bond, assuming they’ll never see their dog again, stop searching after becoming discouraged.

Rescuer behaviors that create problems

People who find stray dogs often mistake their behavior. They assume that a fearful dog was mistreated when in reality the dog has a naturally fearful personality and has been shy and fearful since it was a very young.

Dogs found in isolated country areas are often believed to be homeless after being dumped by a terrible owner. Believe it or not, many rescuers never believe a dog found wandering in a country area could be lost.

If a dog doesn’t have a collar, some people think it’s homeless and will stop trying to find the dog’s owner and start working to place the dog in a shelter. Well-meaning people also avoid placing dogs in shelters because they fear a shelter will euthanize a dog after a given number of days. This is unfortunate because the first place an owner of a lost dog will search is a shelter!
Don’t ignore your own gut instinct.

Don’t get in your own way or anyone else’s when it comes to finding lost pets.

The barrage of messages that enter our minds through TV ads, billboard advertising, and other places make their way into our thought processes and eventually influence actions we take. Malcolm Gladwell, author of BLINK: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, believes that most of our decision making comes from an other than conscious level. He says that we make unconscious associations that influence our decisions which then influence our behavior. These associations are opinions we’ve developed based on the things we’ve seen or heard in the past. It’s the unconscious within us that helps form our opinions.

So what does this have to do with finding your lost dog?

The animal welfare industry, although meaning very well, has sent out the messages of homeless, abandoned, dumped, and feral. People who have heard messages that millions of homeless animals are abandoned and dumped every year can jump to the conclusion that the lost dog they find was purposely dumped and is homeless rather than giving thought to the possibility that it could be a lost pet.

Someone who believes that a dog was dumped is more likely to adopt it themselves instead of trying to find its owner. It’s true that some dogs are indeed abandoned. However, most are not! Think about it…in order for most of the loose dogs out there to be unwanted there would be, statistically, hoardes of people lining up every day just to dump all of these dogs!

In reality, many people contact animal shelters daily to report that their dog is missing. The number of loose dogs that end up in pounds, rescue organizations, or are adopted by their “finders” are much less compared with the number of people who abandon them.

So when you come upon a dog minus its owner, think lost and not stray or dumped!