Collecting Sighting Info

Often in a search for a lost dog, there are no, or few, sightings. And when the dog is actually out and about, as opposed to having been picked up, a lack of sightings can be very disheartening and depressing.

But then there are the cases with LOTS of sightings.

This tip is going to be valuable to only a fraction of individual lost dog owners who are currently searching for their lost dogs. But for the pet detective or lost dog recovery specialist, this gives you one more option to advise lost dog owners about if you are working a case with lots of sightings: Collect sighting information on an electronic form!

I haven't tried it yet, and in fact, I only just recently learned about free online form builders. And the first use I thought of related to searching for lost dogs is to collect sighting information. The first form building program I learned about was jotform.com, and I found some info on it on their Facebook page. So I suggest looking at that.

But since I really am not prepared to recommend one over the other, never having actually tried any of them, it seems that I should give equalt time to all of the programs I found quickly and easily with one quick internet search. So here are the websites I found, in no particular order other than alphabetical:

• http://www.emailmeform.com/
• http://www.formlogix.com/
• http://www.formsmarts.com/
• http://www.jotform.com/
• http://www.phpform.org/
• http://www.wufoo.com/
• http://www.zoho.com/

I'd love to hear how this works for anyone that tries it before I do. And I'd love to hear about other ideas for this kind of resource, in addition to the idea of collecting sighting info.

Surveillance Plans

A couple of nights ago, I ran a stake-out for the first time in a while, and this was after only participating in a few stake-outs before. Not that you know what I'd already learned, I'm going to share the new stuff I picked up.

One relates to establishing locations; one that we established turned out to be way too active. It was like Grand Central Station. There's a Dunkin Donuts and a Subway and a couple of restaurants. It probably would be a good location for an overnight stake-out, but this one ran from 8pm to midnight. We pulled it as soon as we figured it out, and reassigned the volunteers.

Another relates to deciding what volunteers are assigned to what locations. One volunteer has her own night vision, so we put her at one of two sites that was completely dark, with no street lighting. That was a good call. In another case, we got lucky when we paired two volunteers that were not interested in sharing a vehicle, but both stayed in their own cars, out of preference. We wanted the volunteers to help keep each other awake, so in general, this isn't preferable -- for them to be in separate cars. But at their site, it happens that one needed to watch the street and the other needed to watch the park, which are in opposite directions. So their cars faced opposite directions, and it worked.

We had neglected to instruct each volunteer team to study the areas surround each of the five surveillance sites, which they would need to know in case a sighting came in to one, since we would want all teams to move to the sighting area to assist. We got a volunteer to stay by the phone and computer so that she would be able to help navigate anyone that called her, in the event of a sighting, to the sighting location. Now, I would always want someone on standby for this reason.

We set up a phone tree in the event that a sighting came in. The first person to call would be the dog's foster mom, with whom she had bonded. Then the sighter would call the person on the list to which he was assigned. This would be the passenger/non-driver in another team. That person would call the person to whom they were assigned, which was the passenger in another team. This would continue until everyone was notified and would be on their way to the sighting locaiton. We tested this, and thankfully so since one person's phone number, on the list, was his home phone not his cell phone!

No, we never sighted the dog that night. But my consolation prize was figuring a few things out about stake-outs that I hadn't known  before.

Weatherproofing Fliers

All notices posted should be weather-proofed!

Page protectors are common, as are large ziplock bags. Clear contact paper can be used.

Remember when using page protectors to put the opening at the bottom! Here's a sign I encountered once that was printed on really good quality paper, so the flier itself was fine. But can you tell that the page protecters is holding several ounces of water?

Sighting Responses

It can be pretty exciting when, while a dog is missing, a sighting is reported. Hope comes alive, especially after a time with no sightings.

Sightings can change the direction of a search. When a sighting report comes in that is 4 blocks from where the dog is thought to be, fliering starts up in the new area and feeding stations are set up in the new area

False sightings aren't good, of course. It goes with out saying. But when you really want sightings and there haven't been any for a time, that last thing you want a sighting to be is a false sighting.

But because the possibility is always there, standard procedure calls for verifying the validity of a sighting. Always do that.

When a sighting call comes in, most people know to go to the area and search to see if the dog sighted is still in the area. What a lot of people don't know is that you also want to canvass the area, talking to everyone you can find, asking if they have seen such a dog, or if they know of a dog with a simlar look that resides in the area.

If the lost dog's owner or a volunteer are quick to deny that the dog sighted could be any dog other than the lost dog in question, probe them. I've been known to demand that questioning continue "until you find the dog in the neighborhood that looks like our lost dog, because the dog sighted was not our lost dog". (And yes, the expected dog has been found in such cases.)

For pet detectives or lost dog recovery specialists, this is one of the discussion items that belongs on the (lengthy) list of those that get covered early on. Too bad there are so many items on that list.

So, what are you doing? You have a picture of the dog, and copies of the flier and biz cards. You walk around the area, looking for people you can see moving about, be they residents if it's a residential area, or anyone moving through it such as service or delivery people, mail carriers, professional dog walkers. Stop and talk to those you see, but also knock on doors.

Show a picture of the lost dog, and state that there was a sighting of a dog matching its description. Ask if the person has seen a dog like that, and ask if the person knows anything about a dog that might live in the area that could have been seen and believed to be the lost dog. If yes, ask where that dog lives, so that you can go there and ask if said dog had been out on its own recently.

It's tough to get pumped up from a sighting, and then have the sighting shot down in this way. But it's a necessary task. As disappointing as this is, sightings need to be uncovered as false when they are, in fact, false sightings.

Fundraising for Lost Dog Searches

The search for a lost dog can be amazingly expensive. And yet often, there are many people that would be willing to and would want to donate to the cause if they were asked or at least offered an easy way to do so when their friends, family or even total strangers with compelling stories find themselves in a lost dog search.

Websites such as the following offer easy ways to allow people to donate large or small amounts to a search:

http://www.chipin.com/

http://www.firstgiving.com/

http://www.fundrazr.com/

And there are more that you may be aware of.

As a lost dog recovery specialist, I encourage dog owners (or responsible parties) to consider this option. It's very easy to set up a fundraising account, and link it to a Paypal account. What happens is that funds raised go into a bank account, via Paypal, and what sites like Chipin or Fundrazr or FirstGiving do is provde an image that displays the details of the fundraising effort in an interesting image that is dynamic, and changes as new donations are entered. They also provide a single page devoted to the fundraising effort, allowing you space to make a case for why people should donate to your cause.

Here's an example of a ChipIn "widget" as it's called, which might be placed on a website such as a blog that is centered around a search for a lost dog:

Sadly in the example case, this dog's owner did not publicize the fundraising effort after setting up the account, so this example doesn't show the many contributors and high dollar amounts that you can sometimes see for lost dog searches.

When you set up an account, you get (1) html code to place the image on a website, and (2) a hyperlink to a page which can be sent out in emails, posted to Craigslist, Facebook, Twitter, bulletin boards, on websites -- you name it.

And you would be amazed at the response you can get when you ask for help, particularly when you make it this easy, and if you engage people in the search by posting updates. That applies to friends, family and to total strangers!

Many people don't want to go this route at all because they want to fund the search themselves. Sometimes it is that they don't know how expensive it can get, sometimes they are just to uncomfortable to ask for help, and often it is because they assume that no one will be able to or be interested in helping in this way.

For me, it's standard to advise people to consider this option. Check out what fundraising is like today with sites such as these.

Ask For Help

That's the message from this blog update!

It's one of the first messages I try to give to people looking for their lost dogs when I have only time for a few messages. And believe me, it's hard to fit it in because there are really quite a number of items that make up the list of the first things to coach a lost dog owner/guardian about.

There are so many anecdotes and illustrations that breathe life into the "ask for help" statement. I will focus on just one, which you can read and/or watch for yourself. It's the story of Domino, a rat terrier in whose home is in Phoenix and who went missing in California

When Kim and Jason, Domino's mom and dad, vacationed for a week in San Diego, Domino naturally joined them. It was a family vacation, after all. While on a walk with one of the friends, Domino got away. Long story short, Kim and Jason ended up having to leave and return to Phoenix after several days, without Domino.

For several weeks, Kim searched online, and did everything she could think of using the internet. In an online posting, she saw that someone spotted a small terrier type dog, and though it was quite a distance from where Domino went missing, Kim knew enough to at least check it out. She contacted the poster, a woman named Vicki. It didn't take long to establish that the dog Vicki saw was not Domino. But during the time that the conversation took place, and perhaps in part being drawn out by Vicki's warm personality, Kim opened up to Vicki and shared her grief and desperation for help.

After a couple of days, Vicki realized that she was compelled to help. With posters in hand and friends expressing draw dropping disbelief at what she was doing, she set out on the hour-and-a-half drive from Laguna Beach to San Diego to put up posters. Vicki had never done anything like this.

While putting up just the second poster, she was approached by someone certain that this was the dog she had been seeing for a few weeks. So, Vicki found Domino in record time! But all her attempts to get her to come to her failed -- so much that she called Kim to come and get Domino herself. Kim tore out of her house, with no airline ticket, and caught the first flight she could get to San Diego, where Vicki picked her up. And Domino needed only to hear Kim's voice to come running!

It's a wonderful, wonderful story. and you can watch the long and/or the short version of the story told by Vicki, and read the story as told in the Orange County Register.

9 minute version: 

3 minute version: 

Written version with pictures: 

If you are one who helps people find their lost dogs, you may not always have the time to tell this story. And frantic lost dog owners don't have time to watch or read it as they worry for the safety of their pets, and miss them so terribly.

But if this story helps to impress on you the importance of encouraging people to ask for help, or at least allowing them to do so when they offer (and I watch people refuse help all the time), then I've done what I wanted to do.

Pet Harbor

Pet Harbor. Ever heard of it? I guess I would say that Pet Harbor is for animal shelters what Petfinder is for homeless animals in search of new homes.

If there’s one site that most (but sadly, not all) rescue organizations and municipal animal shelters use to post their adoptable pets, it would be Petfinder.com. The site uses good technology, and it’s been promoted well enough that it has become the website of choice for posting adoptable rescue animals. I see this as a good thing.

And if there’s one website that most animal shelters use to post pictures and information about the stray pets they take in and house (again, there isn’t!), then that website would be petharbor.com. Pet Harbor is also used for posting shelters’ adoptable pets, but the stray pets posting is what I concern myself with and what I’m referring to. I wouldn’t say that its technology or promotion, and therefore usage, is quite on a par with petfinder.com, but it’s “good enough”. Instructions for using the Pet Harbor website are at eHow, and you can find some statistical data about its traffic at faqs.org.

While there’s not really a substitute for going into a shelter and checking in person, by far the closest thing to that is checking petharbor.com. It’s not without its drawbacks and downsides, and it takes some exploration to figure out its navigation, but it should never be dismissed. It should be a standard part of every search for a missing pet. By that I mean checking it several times a day.

The job can easily be assigned to someone other than the dog’s frantic and depressed owner. In fact, it can be done by someone not anywhere near the area where the dog was lost if that person has a few good pictures of the dog to use for comparisons against the pictures of lost dogs in shelters that are posted to Pet Harbor. Many a lost dog owner has told me “I don’t know many people here since I only moved here a while ago, so no, I don’t have people that can help me with the search” to which I’ve responded in this way:

“Do you have family, college roommates , former neighbors or anyone in your life that live in other parts of the country, but love you and want to help you when you need help? Are there people that would actually be hurt if you didn’t let them help you when you are down? Don’t YOU have friends in other parts of the country that you would want to help in times of need? Let one or two of those people help you by handling the Pet Harbor searching for your lost dog.”

In order to put Pet Harbor to the best use, check in with the shelters in your area that use it, and find out how often the shelter staff and volunteers post to it, and in general, how seriously THEY take it. Hopefully you will find that they update it several times a day. If so, then you should have someone checking it several times a day during any lost dog search.

I operate with people that search through Pet Harbor and Craigslist every day, and who have therefore helped MANY strangers reunite with their lost dogs by telling them something that they didn’t know: that their dog is at the shelter. Often, a person files a lost dog report with the shelter and they then feel they have “checked the box” and they never check back, or even plan to, because they assume they will get a call if the dog makes its way in to the shelter. Many people never learn that they can check the shelter dogs with Pet Harbor.

So if you feel like being a hero, get in the habit of checking Pet Harbor as soon as you learn about a dog that has gone missing. Eventually it will pay off!

Fliers in Residental Mailboxes

I think most people have heard, somewhere along the way, that it’s illegal to put missing pet (or any) fliers in mail boxes – right? You probably don’t actually question it, but if you’re like me, you’d really like to see the code that spells it out. And I have it for you.

There are several codes to look at to get the full picture. You want to look at Title 18, Section 1725, which you can find at: http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/18C83.txt. (This is on the US House of Representatives' website.) Here’s how it reads:

TITLE 18 - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE

PART I - CRIMES

CHAPTER 83 - POSTAL SERVICE

Sec. 1725. Postage unpaid on deposited mail matter

-STATUTE- Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits any mailable matter such as statements of accounts, circulars, sale bills, or other like matter, on which no postage has been paid, in any letter box established, approved, or accepted by the Postal Service for the receipt or delivery of mail matter on any mail route with intent to avoid payment of lawful postage thereon, shall for each such offense be fined under this title.

And here’s a more reader-friendly version, on the Cornell University Law School site:



Click for a larger view

Then you also want to look on the US Postal Service’s website at the Domestic Mail Manual, then search on “Customer Mail Receptacles”, the second and third paragraphs. Get straight to it by going to: http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/508.htm. The important parts are where it says:

“Door slots and non-lockable bins or troughs used with apartment house mailboxes are not letterboxes within the meaning of 18 USC 1725 and are not private mail receptacles for the standards for mailable matter not bearing postage found in or on private mail receptacles. The post or other support is not part of the receptacle”
and
“no part of a mail receptacle may be used to deliver any matter not bearing postage, including items or matter placed upon, supported by, attached to, hung from, or inserted into a mail receptacle. Any mailable matter not bearing postage and found as described above is subject to the same postage as would be paid if it were carried by mail.”

Here’s a visual for you:

Click for a larger view

And last, though I couldn’t find an the actual bulletin, I found a quote that was in a USPS Postal Bulletin, Issue 21861, 2-17-94, p. 37 (wouldn’t you know that the USPS started putting its bulletins online in 1995), entitled "Mailable Matter in or on Private Mail Receptacles” which reads as follows:

"Mailable matter not bearing postage found in or on private mail receptacles represents a revenue deficiency to the Postal Service and is a violation of federal law. Title 18 United States Code, section 1725, provides for a fine of not more than $300 per piece for these violations. All employees must uniformly enforce the procedures detailed in the Domestic Mail Manual, section P011.2.0. The failure to enforce these procedures uniformly may jeopardize the criminal prosecution of repeated violators."

You may also find this page helpful:  http://www.lplists.com/mail-off.htm

What's your interpretation? Mine is -- steer clear of residential mailboxes! But feel free to put them in a newspaper box, in a mail slot, or at the front door, such as hanging in a bag on the knob, or rolled up and threaded through the handle.

Here's an important point for pet detectives or for organized volunteers assisting in a specific search -- remember to cover this important regulation with the missing pet's people early in the game. I once stepped in to a search late on the very afternoon that the dog's people had spent hours, before my arrival and before we could talk, putting fliers into mailboxes in the rural area where the dog had been seen. That night, she recieved an angry email from a resident who had found a flier in her mailbox, stating that he was filing a complaint with the post office since it's illegal to put fliers in mailboxes. Sure enough he did, on Monday. The lost dog's person got off easy, with a warning from a postal worker who obviously hated being placed in the position of having to contact her. But she did break a law. And this was very awkward for me since volunteering to assist people search for and recover their lost dogs is what I do, so I can't be any part of breaking federal, or local, laws.

It was a lesson for me . . . however the problem is that there are a TON of important points that all need to be covered with the people as the first item of business when starting to help someone search for their missing pet!

Unremovable Scent Trails

This update passes on a tiny tip, or trick, to put in your bag if you are a pet detective or a lost dog recovery volunteer or specialist. It’s one of those brilliant ideas that, when Donna, my lost dog searching associate, came up with it, I said a silent prayer of thanks for having hooked up with her to do this type of volunteer work.

We had been searching for a dog that had been sighted a few times, and tracked just about as many times by a missing pet scent trailing dog, well trained and with years of experience, that our area is lucky to have. It seems that he had been sticking to well travelled routes. There was plenty of automobile and foot traffic where this dog had been spotted and scented.

As is normally the case when trying to recover a dog known to be at large for a period of time, we believed that when this dog was encountered, he would not come easily, so that the effort would shift from a search effort to a recovery effort. We knew we needed to at least plan to use a humane trap, and if it turned out that he came running once he saw and smelled his family member, then great.

Since he was traveling such a highly populated area, we knew that we needed a way to draw him off the beaten path, because any humane trap we would set up had to be located away from the traffic. It needed to be in a spot that wouldn’t draw the attention of humans. This is always true, pretty much.

But what could we use to lead him astray, so to speak, when he seemed so intent on sticking to sidewalks? Naturally, a scent lure came to mind quickly. Bread crumbs, literally? No, if nothing else, any kind of treat or meat trail or something like that would be gobbled up overnight by other free ranging animals of all types – raccoons, squirrels, foxes, possums, cats, you name it. Once that happened, even if the other animals didn’t follow the trail to the bonus feeding station, the trail leading the prized dog off of his route would be gone.

Although the dog has never been seen or scented since, and we don’t know where he is today, the solution to that problem has stuck with me, and I would love to pass it on and eventually, get feedback to see how this works for others to resolve this particular problem. The solution is: a grease trail.

Donna got some fast food joint to agree to hold out a container of grease for her, though when she picked it up, the guy saved too small a container to work for us since we needed to lay a longer trail than the grease would have created. So we ended up picking up bottled gravy or broth or something like that. But the idea is the same – some form of scent trail that isn’t removable as would be a trail of food or articles of clothing.

As I’m writing this, I’m remembering that this is the same thing as the scent water that we instruct bonded dog owners to create. We instruct them to soak dirty socks in water, bottle the water, and spray a scent trail from a sighting location to their home. This is actually huge – when there is a relationship between the lost dog and the person. Where the dog is newly adopted, or fostered, or just in from transport (such as a rescue dog brought in to our suburban area from high kill shelters in rural areas, a common rescue practice), this grease trail is well worth trying.

If you use this luring method, let me know how it works!

What's in a Name?

When spreading the word about a lost dog, typically for the purpose of making people aware of whom they can contact if they’ve seen or taken in the dog, should the dog’s name be part of the information made available to the public?

There’s plenty of debate on the subject. The question goes all the way back to the dog’s collar tags, and whether the tag should list the dog’s name. Then if the dog goes missing, the question comes up again when fliers are being designed. What are the advantages and disadvantages as you see them?

There is no right or wrong answer. But there are considerations for and against. The final decision is one that you, or the dog’s owner/guardian, need to make.

Many lost dogs have been taken in by persons with less than the best of intentions. It has probably happened many times that when such people have had the benefit of knowing the dog’s name, whether by the tag or from fliers, they have had an easier time assimilating the beloved lost dog into their own lives, and never returning the dog to its owner. That’s a scary thought, that a dog can be “led astray” so to speak, by someone addressing him or her by name.

On the other hand, if the finder is well intended, and has the opportunity to address the dog by name, it can have a calming effect on a dog that has lost its way. Tucker was lost for weeks, also losing a lot of weight and gaining a lot of cockleburs along the way. When he allowed a couple to get close enough to see his tag, and his name, they noticed that he was, as they said, a different dog once he heard his name. He was reunited with his family two days later.

A hazard of publicizing the name of a lost dog that we've seen many times is that when a person that spots the dog wandering or running on its own, recognizes the dog from fliers or other methods through which the word has been spread, then her or she may be more likely to call out to the dog, using its name. Unfortunately, calling a skittish, frightened lost dog is very often the worst thing to do. So in that sense, it can be better to not provide the dog's name to the public, but just a description.

A dog’s first name on its tag has also been known to give a local animal hospital employee a way to find the owner when the dog’s rescuer walked in with him after having picked him up near where the business was located. She searched their customer database for dogs with that first name, and found the dog’s owner within minutes. You can read that story at http://www.drvicki.org/pr-lessons.html.

Another advantage to including the dog's name when spreading the word of a lost dog comes into play when posting ads to Craigslist. In many communities with their own Craigslist, there are good Samaritans that troll the site looking to make matches between lost and found dogs posted there, or perhaps there and such sites as Pet Harbor or Fido Finder. It can make the job easier for these volunteers, who may be juggling numerous missing pets at once, if there are names associated with the lost, or found, dogs they are trying to match up. Mari Levine of Watsonville CA is one such person that does this on a regular basis.

Many dogs that go missing don’t have names that they recognize. For example, a dog new to a rescue situations that has had a troubled past life may be more apt to flee than would a well adjusted dog with a bonded owner. This may include dogs in transport from a rural high kill shelter to a suburban rescue organization, a dog in the fostering stage, a newly adopted dog. If a dog doesn’t recognize its name, then there is less reason to publicize the name that is being used for the dog than if he or she does respond to a name.

What do you think? Does it vary from case to case? What pro's and con's for providing a lost dog's name can you add to the list?

Survival of the Fittest

I believe that one of the reasons that many dogs spend time in shelters is because, for a myriad of reasons, their owners or guardians give up the search for them. Some such dogs end their lives in shelters, some go on to be adopted, and possibly leaving other truly homeless dogs unadopted. But all dogs in shelters, even for short periods of time, require resources that have to come from somewhere, and be paid for. So, keeping lost dogs out of shelters is a good reason to learn how to recover lost dogs.

Of the many reasons that owners give up the search, one of the saddest for me is that they decide that their dog isn’t going to survive on its own long enough to be found, and captured. Between elements, wildlife and cars, many people begin to experience doubts very quickly if their pet has never spent much time on its own. It can be very difficult convincing someone not to give up a search after a couple of days.

Toby’s story of survival is one that is quick to tell, but it’s powerful. Little Toby materialized after almost four weeks on the lam.

He is a shih tsu, weighing nearly 15 pounds when he ran off, fearful of many things. He had been adopted into a new home the day after Christmas, after having spent a few months in a foster home after his rescue organization had received him from a backyard breeder. Not much is known about him, but he most likely was given few opportunities for socialization, and wasn’t taught to be confident in himself and his abilities. However, there’s no indication that he had had ever had to fend for himself.

Toby backed out of his harness three days after he arrived in his new home, on December 29th.

Over the next four weeks, there were a few sightings, and a lot of effort on the part of many volunteers who came together to search for him, make sure that feeding stations were monitored, and fliers were hung.

Just a half a mile from where most of the sightings were, on recovery day (January 24th), he was seen by a family that owns chickens. This little dog that was later, after his capture, found to be emaciated, severely dehydrated, covered in burrs, have lost about a third of his body weight, and who started out as skittish dog lacking in confidence, had killed one of their chickens!

Now who really knows if this kill was intended by Toby so he could consume the chicken, or if perhaps he was trying to eat the chicken feed and ended up needing to defend himself against the chicken. It doesn’t matter; it’s still a story that surprises people. Most people don't expect a tiny and weak little dog who had never lived on his own to be able to take down a chicken, whether in defense or for consumption.



Toby at home after his ordeal. He doesn't really make you think "survivor", does he? But he is!!

Hopefully the story can be used to convince lost dog owners in the future that their dog’s likely have more survival skills and instincts than they realize, and to keep up the search for their beloved missing pets.

Bonded Person as Lure

After my last update, I will offer a contradictory lesson, since I’ve learned both lessons. Both are important.

I had briefly discussed a scientific explanation of why a dog that has been out on its own for a while, eating a bad diet, will fail, at lealst initially, to recognize its owner when seen, heard and even smelled.

It remains true, that in many cases, a dog will show no signs of recognition when first reunited with a person or people with whom he was bonded before disappearing. But on the other hand, and in other cases, the dog’s bonded owner, or anyone that had been close to the dog before it went missing, may still be the best lure there is.

When Vixen went missing, we were told all about her many fears. There was almost nothing and no one that she was not afraid of. After a few days of fliers, large signs, and other outreach to the community about Vixen and her plight, we started to receive sighting calls from people that were seeing her. This gave us our first ideas about where to start putting feeding stations, which we would want to swap out for a humane trap. Pretty soon, we realized that we had a problem since the chance that she would approach even a feeding station was looking really remote.

But protocol was to contact the people that she had stayed with before she was adopted – two days before she went missing, by the way. Prior to that, she had spent several months in a dog day care facility, after having been rescued from a bad situation. Several of the employees had become familiar to her, so they were to be called if a live sighting was to come in.

And such a sighting call did come in, and they were called. After all that build-up, Vixen pretty much went right to the person within minutes of her arrival.

So, the successful lure here wasn’t food, which we always think of first when considering possible lures. It was a familiar and trusted person.

I could point to any number of stories that ended similar to Vixen’s story, with family members serving, in effect, as the lure. Luna’ story is another one that I will tell.

When we were working together to try to round up a stray beagle that had taken up residence in a neighborhood, we posted a picture from our wildlife camera, once we captured the first few, to Craigslist. We were looking for the owner, and within a day, a woman came forward after comparing our picture to those of her family’s beagle that had disappeared four weeks earlier, from their home 22 miles away. The woman came out with her small children and her mother. Once she emerged from the woods, it did take the dog a few minutes to focus, or to catch a whiff of their scent, or do whatever it took to recognize the family. When she did, she went running to them. I’d love to have seen it, as I’m sure it was a beautiful scene.

The advice, then, for the pet detective, is to caution the dog’s owner that the dog may not recognize the person, but then also, to include people that the dog was bonded to among the responders for live sighting calls.