Maryland has had record breaking snow this year

I just got the message that a lost cat we searched for several months ago was recovered.  Sadly he was not alive.  He was an old cat Chewy ran a track to a storm drain we actually crawled inside as far as we could go.  When Chewy reached the point that there were just tiny little holes too small to fit inside we gave up.  A couple of months later the cat washed out of the drain.  Sadly I suspect even with the information from the dog there was little if anything the owners could have done to change the outcome.  I think the message here is for many lost pet owners it is important that you do what you can but as  some point fate is out of our control.  I am often asked by lost pet owners how much should they do.  There is no right or wrong answer do what you are comfortable doing.  I usually tell people that at first it is painful and hard a lost pet ruins your life as you pour energy and resources into getting the message out as far and quickly as possible.  You go and look at anyplace he may possibly be.  Then you can move into maintenance mode if necessary.  In maintenance mode you follow up on sightings make sure posters and fliers are current and legible and not becoming an eyesore to the community.  You follow up with reminders to organizations that may encounter your pet.  You can maintain this stage indefinitely depending on your circumstances.

We helped a friend look for her father in laws dog.  a 16 year old pit X that had been run over by a truck.  Dusty was last seen running into a hay field.  My Friend took her dog out and they searched that field until the heat of the day forced them out.  That night Chewy came she ran a track past the hay field and down into the woods behind their cow pasture.  We were all sure that poor ole Dusty was laying out there dieing in the field so I dragged Chewy back up the hill where we spent a good chunk of the evening searching the field for that old dog.  Later that evening we admitted we could not find Dusty in the field.  Her owner the farmer said he believed she was dead in that field otherwise “Dusty would come home.”  I could not disagree with him but suggested they post some fliers and contact neighboring houses just in case that track was a good one after all.  (I admit I also thought the dogs had missed the old lady in the field.)  The next day Dusty followed the cows up from the field in front of the woods we had tracked to the previous night.  Her head had been run over and she was a mess but a trip to the veterinarian left her with the prognosis of full recovery!  Now that is a happy ending with a couple of take home messages.  I am kicking myself for not searching the woods better NEVER assume anything look at the tracking dogs and use the information they give you for what it is worth.  The other point I got is that it does not hurt to put that message out that a pet is missing unless we have hard evidence otherwise.  They may still be alive. 

Chewy a Chinese crested little dog pushed a screen out of his foster home and ran away.  They lived on a busy highway leading to Atlantic City out of the front door and thousands of acres of wildlife preserve woods behind them.  No sightings of Chewy had the rescue folks thinking the worst.  They called for a tracking dog Chewy came and ran a track.  It left the woods a few houses down the street from his foster house.  When I asked the resident if she had seen a small hairless dog she said “Yes he was here a few nights ago.”  We failed to pick anything else up in the woods and I was reluctant to risk my dog along that wet highway so we left the rescue with the advice that we had no reason to believe their Chewy was dead or eaten in the woods.  And that they needed to get the message to the community about the dog so that people could watch for him and call if they see him.  The next day a group of volunteers descended on the community they posted fliers in the direction my Chewy had taken them.  Within an hour of posting a flier not far from the house a camper saw Chewy and was able to recover him and find the rescue ladies.  The Little guy is back inside and looking for a real home again. 

Chewy’s recovery illustrates what we so often say that the search dogs rarely recover a lost pet we just do not catch up to an animal capable of moving.  We are able to use the dogs as an information gathering tool to help us successfully recover pets. 

This has been quite a year for lost pet recoveries. I still feel like our expectations for “walk up” finds with a dog run about ten percent. However I was speaking with Sam the other day and I think that perhaps we should review our record for successful recoveries this last year. I suspect it is running closer to ninety percent. I have said before that I believe there is no magic involved that in fact it is primarily that the people we work with all ready put themselves into a category that will likely recover their pet because they are doing everything they can. The successful recoveries should be credited to the owners not the “pet detectives”. Having said that the pet detectives have done a great job gathering researching, testing, and disseminating information to pet owners that helps people know sooner what to do and how to do it in order to increase their chances of success.

Looking over some of our searches I’m always trying to find “take home messages” that I can use for other searches. Some from this year. I saw more evidence of predator activity indoor/outdoor cats that disappeared from their yards we always say there probably is a reason, otherwise the cat would just come home. We had one cat with an invisible fence collar the dog found the collar and the remains only a little fur the long bones and the skull in a neighbors yard under a large tree in some brush. It looks like a large bird of prey actually grabbed the cat out of her yard carried her the short distance to where we found her. The other predator activity all we found were some tufts of fur and a tail matching the distinct color of the cat, very near a fox den area. I usually tell people that I don’t see foxes being much of a threat to a healthy adult cat. In fact when talking to another lady attempting to recover her neighbors cat she started feeding feral cats in her neighborhood. She said the fox visited the feeders but were usually chased off by the cats. I still think that urban cats greatest risk is the automobile. We recovered a cat in PA that appeared to be hit by a car and a case I was going to help with next weekend sounds like her cat was hit by a car. These cats are usually in their territory or very near it. They take refuge close to the accident location and they usually do not respond to calls for them. One lady said she found her cat because other cats in the neighborhood were sitting around the shed he was under “just looking at it”. Watch the other animals in your neighborhood for unusual activity and check it out. I had another search in Boston where the dog found a significant pile of cat hair. At first I was concerned but then realized it was just fur. We followed up with feeding stations in that area the owner did not feed the cat the night it rained the next night she put his food in a trap and caught her cat! My happy take home message is that even if it looks like there is evidence that something happened there if it is just fur don’t always assume the worst. He was a very plush longhair cat the owner said he sometimes shed that much fur at home just regular grooming. Yet another take home message the REAL expert on the individual animal is always the owner.

We had two cats disappear from one neighborhood even though we often say multiple missing animals is a symptom of predator activity I did not feel that was the case. My take home point here was do not just plug information into the formulas. Both cats were subsequently recovered alive and well inspite of their adventure. Interestingly it was immediately after a rainstorm, people saw the cats on their porches. I suspect their hiding places may have been flooded out so they went to dry areas. My additional note to self is make sure people are putting fliers out before the rain and following up with looking after especially if it has been dry since the cat left. By the way this was a hard rain as opposed to a gentle misting so that may also have been significant.

We often recommend feeding and security stations, and we have been recommending nice smelly high value food stuffs. The lady called something was eating the food on the back porch. When she told me the something had bypassed the canned food and sardines for the special diet dry cat food I told her she did not need the dog to put that special diet cat food in a humane trap instead. Sure enough she caught her cat. I remember when I did marketing for a major pet food company they said that cats especially liked their food to be a certain shape. And that it is especially difficult to change a cats food even if the new stuff is much better if the cat has only eaten one shape food. My take home message use the cats regular food it can be in addition to the “good stuff” but both should be offered. If you get results from the less desirable food it is a good bet you are feeding your cat. (Now that does not hold true for all cats my own cat River will eat anything off the plate even salad with dressing if he can.)

We have some take home messages for dogs as well first it appears we do a lot less work for dogs in fact the majority of my phone calls are for lost dogs. The bottom line though is that dogs are most often recovered using posters, postcards, phone trees, public media, and getting the message to other people that it is your dog. Usually we talk to the owner make any suggestions to fill holes they may have in their search plan set a date to come search for their dog and get called off because the dog was sighted before we got there.

Very rarely does the trailing dog even get close to a lost dog. Either the dog is skittery and runs away when we start chasing it through the woods. Like the six-month-old cane corsa puppy. We were on a nice track through the woods in the dark chewy was pulling hard chasing something. The track was good I suspected we were chasing the pup towards a busy road. So I pulled her off the track and sent the owners and helpers in to grid search the woods. Sure enough the pup was found very near where we pulled out the previous night. Her sister also ran it was an awful story a lady ran into two people and their two six month old pups and a trailer the people were taken to the hospital the pups ran two different directions. The area was relatively urban with lots of woods surrounding the developments. The general feeling was that someone probably had the second pup that we could not find that night. In spite of that we decided to continue searching wood lots and putting up posters and getting the message out. The second pup was recovered a couple of miles away she apparently chewed her leash off and managed to hide in those woods for several days. Both pups are home safe the take home message is to keep looking even if all evidence points to the possibility that someone took your dog.

Tracking dogs is like tracking outdoor cats we usually get a track but it may just be your dogs regular walking ritual. Especially areas where dogs are not kept leashed or in fenced yards. On the other hand our trailing dogs have often been successful pointing owners into places they should post fliers.

The other take home message is to keep ID on your dog at all times. Microchips are much more common these days and the system for reading them is getting more efficient. Organizations are routinely checking for microchips as we learned in the past with a valuable dog that the person found and was going to keep the nice thing with microchips is that you have some proof that the dog was yours.

The other take home message regarding dogs is that we have several recoveries where dogs were near the home usually elderly and/or physically compromised dogs that we were able to recover because they got themselves stuck. In a drainage or ravine. Although we did have one elderly blind dog that the trailing dog got a great track from the back yard right down to the woods then it ended in the woods. We searched those woods from top to bottom. Later on the way home she got a second track by the road. This was confirmed by a sighting up the street the next day. It turned out that family members had walked our original path but did not go into the woods. The trailing dog is only as good as the start article. There are two take home messages the first is that the subject characteristics are helpful but not written in stone. I usually urge people to use a shotgun approach when searching for their dog. Even if I run a great trail don’t discount other possibilities. The other take home message is to get a start article that smells like the animal we are searching for and not everyone else in the household. Impossible unless the owner plans ahead and has a start article set aside. At demos we have a little kit for the pet owners a sterile gauze and baggie we ask the owner to place some of the dogs hair in the baggie, and to swab the inside of the dogs mouth etc. Put that into the baggie then store it in a cool place out of direct sunlight for emergencies.

So in short my take home messages include but are not limited to:

• Cats that are hit by cars are usually in their territory or very near it.
• Watch the other animals in your neighborhood for unusual activity and check it out.
• Even if it looks like there is evidence that something happened there if it is just fur don’t always assume the worst.
• The REAL expert on the individual animal is always the owner.
• Make sure people are putting fliers out before the rain and following up with looking after especially if it has been dry since the cat left.
• My take home message use the cats regular food it can be in addition to the “good stuff” but both should be offered.
• Dogs are most often recovered using posters, postcards, phone trees, public media, and getting the message to other people that it is your dog.
• Very rarely does the trailing dog even get close to a lost dog.
• Keep looking even if all evidence points to the possibility that someone took your dog.
• Keep ID on your dog at all times.

Get a start article that smells like the animal we are searching for and not everyone else in the household.

A very detailed article by Ron Cassie of The Frederic Post. 

Mr Cassie wrote a very useful article about recovering lost pets.  He included some good pointers for people to help them.  One thing his article illustrated  the value of a good start article. We need something that smells like your missing pet but not other animals or people that may have been walking through the area recently.  We have been in the position of not able to assist when a veterinarian lost a rescue dog they called us a week later everything had been washed and reused the transport crate was long gone.  and it was an urban environment without a start article we can not tell the trailing dog what they are looking for.  If you are doing transport for a rescue it may be prudent to wipe a cotton swab on the animal and put it in a zip lock baggie.  The cost is pennies the time needed is seconds, with luck you will never need any of them. 

http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/archives/fnp_display.htm?StoryID=75023¤t=true 

SEARCH DOWN HILL.

My friend Jane told me her neighbors were having an Independence Day party last night. It seems the fire works put an abrupt end to the festivities when the neighbors herd of cows panicked knocked down the fence and ran off into the night. Immediately following the fourth of July is generally the busy season for those of us helping people locate missing pets.

• If you know your pet is sound sensitive make sure he/she has current identification on.
• Lock your pet into a safe area
• Consult with your veterinarian about calming drugs, which can be administered before your pet works him/herself into a full-blown panic attack.

If your pet is lost

Cats in a panic usually run until they find the first sheltered area then they freeze there. Sometimes for days or even weeks! The cats simply do not respond catatonic is the only word appropriate for these animals. Many times owners give up looking before their cat comes out looking for food and is seen by others. Get out a good high-powered flashlight and begin searching under everything in a circle from your cats last know point. Finding the cat is only half the battle often we will be in the area where the cat is but still can not reach the cat. Patience and a good cat trap are often the techniques used to recover lost cats baby monitor and feeding stations have also been used successfully to recover lost cats once they get brave enough to move or hungry and thirsty enough to come out and eat.

Dogs generally run until exhausted. For a young healthy animal you might be searching miles away from the last known point. Frequently people do not expand their search far enough afield.

• Use poster techniques to cover as much ground as quickly as you can.
• Also use the internet resources to send flyers to every veterinarian in your surrounding areas. Contact the shelters and animal control both locally and in surrounding counties.

The good news is those dogs that are naturally friendly with people and or other dogs will often be recovered in short order if they have some form of identification on them either a tag or registered microchip. If you do not have either in a bind use a sharpie to write your phone number on your dogs collar. (Yes this is the voice of experience, I found the sharpie technique lasted as long as the camping trip.)