The Case for Offering a Reward

I so dislike that my advice must always be to offer a reward for a lost dog -- because I so dislike the whole reward concept.

In nearly every case with almost no exceptions, searches for lost dogs get very expensive even before a reward is paid out. And with the stress and anguish that the lost dog's people have typically gone through, often when they did nothing to bring it on (a contractor left a gate open, for example, or a dog went missing while being cared for by someone else, be it a friend, family member or paid caregiver or service provider), paying out the extra money for a reward can greatly increase that stress.

If the dog was found by a kid, that's cool. They don't have many ways of earning their own money, so they get excited about that. And they have no concept of what could be a hardship for a person who's already depleted their checking account to shell out even more money as a reward. So I'm all for a kid being given a reward. Or if a homeless person finds the dog, or someone who wants to donate a reward to charity, or someone who actually worked to try to find the dog -- even if only for the reward -- then those are scenarios where a reward is fine. And when the lost dog's person is just so happy that they are reunited with the dog that they actually want to part with even more money in the name of the reward, then fine.

But it's a slippery slope, paying out big rewards to every day people for returning dogs to their people when they didn't really do much of anything to find the owner beyond checking tags or responding to a flier or a notice they recieved. I know that when I see news stories of people paying out huge sums of money in the name of rewards, I am concerned that they are encouraging people to do unscrupulous things to collect rewards.

The best story I have seen to illustrate the importance of just offering a reward even if you have an issue with rewards, it is Dixie's story, told at: http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=107988595892223. Get ready to be inflamed.

And after you read it, think about how many more people might be out there, smarter than the jerk in the story who wouldn't even pretend or play along, to allow Dixie's dad to believe that he was Dixie's hero, and be happy about giving this guy a large reward for her safe return. How many people that are given rewards out there for unselfish acts really committed very selfish acts for those rewards?

We will never know. But I always, always advise offering a reward for the safe return of a lost dog.

How do others feel about the size of a reward for the return of a lost dog? Visit http://mypetsblog.info/?p=9422 to find out!

To Stake Out or Not to Stake Out

I recall a lesson that I took away from the very first lost dog search I joined, one that was, sadly, unsuccessful. I had been interested in “lost dogs” for many years and had done as much self study as I could figure out how to do. But I hadn’t learned this.

The effort was for a dog whose story had been chronicled in the local newspapers, and the volunteer base was a pretty good size. After they felt that the fliering was sufficient, the search organizers utilized the volunteers for mostly just one thing -- to come out each evening to the location of the latest sightings, stake out a particular spot, and watch for the dog. I followed the instructions, and would monitor this post or that one from my car, sometimes with a partner, sometimes not.

The sightings had already begun to grow older and colder by the day at the time I began my participation. Eventually I came to understand that there is a good possibility that the intense amount of energy that all of those passionate volunteers had brought in to this quiet residential neighborhood may have been picked up loud and clear by this frightened, already skittish dog. There were deeps woods that the dog could, and may well have, retreated in to before reaching the other side and ending up who knows where from there. No trace of the dog has been found in the years since that search effort.

Ever since then, when anyone suggests a stakeout, of a feeding station or a trap or an area where a trained missing pet scent tracking dog has trailed a scent, I ask that we are sure we know exactly why we are setting up the stakeout.

I can’t say that there is never a reason for a stakeout. I’ve been the one to suggest it in cases when there hadn’t been a sighting in a couple of weeks – to hopefully generate a sighting. In areas where there are a lot of other known animals, I’ve taken a laser light pet toy and shooed away foxes and other animals approaching a trap from the distance of my car. (I think there are probably some high powered kids water toys that can also work for this.) I’ve seen people stake out a fenced enclosure with no kind of spring or closing device, without an actual plan, succeed in closing the gate behind the dog because they were staking it out. So, by no means am I saying to never do it. At times, such as with some types of traps, monitoring is necessary.

But feeding stations and most traps can work without being monitored. Feeding stations are used to lure and condition an animal to a specific area, and keep coming there when it’s deemed a reliable food source by the subject. Humane traps are made to work without monitoring.

When you want to know if the animal you are seeking is the one that’s eating from your feeding station, first look for other ways to determine this. Snow is great for showing that it was birds eating the expensive prime rib you left out for a dog you know must be starving by now. Loose dirt that will show paw prints of varying sizes can work, and if there’s none of that around, bring flour.

Motion sensored wildlife cameras can give you some of the best proof you can get. They’re expensive for the owner of one missing pet to purchase, but several of them would be a good investment for a missing pet recovery specialist since they can be used over and over again. Whether you use them to capture videos or still shots, photos confirming the right animal eating at a feeding station are invaluable, and a good alternative to a stakeout for the same purpose.

Yep, this was the long lost Radar approaching the feeding station

If you can’t get out of a stakeout, you may be able to increase the distance you can monitor from with the use of night vision. Sure, this is very pricey equipment, but there are lots of choices out there (monoculars, binoculars, goggles, glasses, scopes, cameras, and more), and some opportunities to borrow this type of equipment.

Future blog updates may deal with the question of "what if you see the animal you are looking for, then what?"

Familiar Scents v Food Scents

The basic recipe for recovering a lost dog once the dog's general location is found, but the dog won't readily come or be contained, is to lure the dog to a humane trap, and contain the dog that way.

Typically, we start with feeding stations located in spots that we can swap out with a humane trap once the dog is conditioned to come to that spot for his food when he determines that the food source is reliable.

But food isn't the only lure that works for some dogs. In cases where the lost dog is bonded to someone (meaning this doesn't work with a dog who just landed in town via transport from a shelter in another area, for example), is the scent of a person, or a dog, with which the dog was bonded. I offer a simple story to illustrate.

In the case of Rocky, a toy poodle lost while hiking in the mountains, was found after three days -- having not touched the food that was set out for him, by lying some distance away on a sweater of his person's, with his scent on it. Read Rocky's story at: http://www.malibutimes.com/articles/2009/05/20/news/news3.txt

There are a ton of stories of scent having been the ticket to luring a dog successfully. The beauty of this story is that it demonstrates the power of the familiar scent OVER the scent of food, even after three days, for a dog bonded to a specific person, since both were available to him.

Can you contribute a story by comment that illustrates how the scent of a familar person can help lure a dog, or condition him to stay in or close to a specific spot?

Craigslist - Don't Give Up

Craigslist is like no other resource for spreading the word about a missing pet. No matter where you live in the US, Craigslist is as important a posting and searching site as you will find for a lost dog recovery effort.

For people new to Craigslist, there are a few things to learn. So, people that don't know Craigslist, and don't get -- or heed -- the advice to use it to the max, do lose out on one of the very best resources available.

Over time, there will probably be plenty of lessons learned posted on this blog about Craigslist. This lesson is simply to never give up on posting to Craigslist no matter how long it's been since there was a sighting.

In some markets, such as in rural areas or those with relatively low populations (Roanoke VA as one example), a posting to the Lost & Found section of Craigslist will remain viewable for weeks or perhaps even months. This is because the traffic on Craigslist is far less than that of a more populated area such as mine in Northern Virginia. You have to get to know your market in order to make the most of Craigslist.

When a dog first goes missing, posting to Craigslist should be daily in an area like mine -- because the posting will drop out of site within 1-2 days. After a time, if the dog is still missing, dropping to a couple or three times a week is fine. At some point, it becomes fine to post weekly, and maybe monthly at the least often, if there is any real objection to posting as often as weekly. But as long as the dog's people still want the lost dog back, they should keep up Craigslist postings indefinitely.

If stories will help convince you that it pays to keep posting to Craigslist even when sightings and activity have dried up, I have three for you.  Shadow's story is my favorite; it's a must read. Shadow had vanished seventeen months earlier when a pair of Craigslist postings lead to a reunion, both of which were viewed by a third party unacquainted with either Shadow's person or the people that found him.

You may also enjoy Whitney's story and Toby's story.  In both cases, these dogs hadn't been seen in a couple of months, but their people just kept up the Craigslist postings anyway.

If you have a chance to pass only only a few tips to someone searching for a lost dog, pass on the tip to use Craigslist to its full potential.

Who Can View Stray Pets at a Shelter

Animal shelters are, it should be obvious, one of the first places to check for a missing pet, especially a dog. There are many assumptions people can make about shelters -- until they spend time at shelters, or talking to people about them, or reading up about the differences between shelters. I think they are like snow flakes, with no two being exactly alike.

A common assumption is that once you file a lost dog report with your local shelter, you can mark it off on your list and spend your time on other items. This is typically not true, and a future update will probably address that issue.

This update addresses something that I found out more recently, about a shelter in the next county over from mine. Actually, I think I heard it once before, in conjunction with a different shelter in a differnt county, but the memory of that first exposure is not so clear as this recent exposure. Here's what it's about:

At this time, there's a shih tzu lost in my general area (which is Northern Virginia), by the name of Toby. He had been adopted from one of the many local animal rescue organizaton about three days before he slipped his collar on a walk. Sightings, and tracks run by a dog trained to trail the scents of missing pets, have him basically meandering in the same neighborhood from which he was lost. The volunteers assembled are focusing on such activities as fliering, checking feeding stations, and monitoring a humane trap.

But some attempts have been made to check the Loudoun County (VA) shelter, since Toby's location is within that county. Recently a volunteer reported that she had learned from talking to the staff at the shelter which she had visited, that only the owner of a lost dog is able to view the strays in the shelter. Her point, which she made after relaying that information to us on our email list, was that we, the volunteers, would no longer be able to help Toby's adoptor in that way.

(Eventually, the adoptor dropped out of the picture, and relinquished Toby back to the rescue organization. So I guess now, volunteers from the rescue can view the stray dogs in the shelter.)

You'd better be my owner, or you can't look at me!

WHAT?????  What would be the reason for this rule????  PLENTY of people that have lost their dogs get help from others to conduct tshelter searches along with fliering, feeding station checking, etc. So, friends and other volunteers need to be able to conduct this task. Yet in Loudoun and in who knows what other counties, there are probably lots of lost dogs in the shelter that never get home because the owners can't get to the shelters, or not during operating hours, to find them.

I'll research this and eventually find some reasons for this rule. I would welcome any help from readers to figure this one out! Leave a comment, and it is emailed to me.

Let's Start Learning!

Oh wait, I already have started learning . . .  but I want to share what I've learned, and continue to learn, about searching for and recovering lost dogs. I know that some of the body of knowledge about searching for missing pets (dogs and cats if not other domestic animals) has been developed and recorded, but I believe that so much of it has yet to be.

My plan with this blog is not to try to organize the lessons, or post them in a specific order. If I waited until I could organize them, I would never even get started. But hopefully with the use of blogging features such as labeling and pages, I can eventually give the reader a way of searching for lessons on topics of interest to them -- when I have enough updates for that.

I anticipate that I will use stories from one of my other blogs, Lost Dogs Found, to illustrate lessons. In other words, I will offer a lot of anecdotal evidence to support the points I make. And hopefully I will also be able to draw some attention to blogs of associates, in other areas, with their own blogs related to searching for missing pets. See the menu at right to view some of those blogs directly.

I have been collecting stories of lost dog reunions for more than a decade, both because they are interesting and more importantly to me, to learn from them.

And I've been working to search for and recover dogs lost in my area (Northern Virginia) since 2008. (Recovering lost cats requires such different skills and tactics that I feel I should stick to just one, dogs, at least until I become expert at it, which I'm not -- yet!) Some others that do what I do call themselves pet detectives, and I may occaisionally use that term when brevity is more important than expressing my vision of what I do. I think of myself as a lost dog recovery specialist, with recovery encompassing the searching part of recovering a lost dog, while containing an at large dog is outside of searching, or working to determine the lost dog's location.

I look to this blog to help other lost dog recovery specialists, or pet detectives, learn, and to help me continue to learn, too. If the blog also helps individual lost dog owners pick up tips and hints, great. But I think of frantic owners of dogs that just escaped as needing a far more brief overview of what they need to do, and presented to them in ways that keep their stress and panicked states in mind than this blog does. The targeted reader is someone looking to use the information learned from this blog in future lost dog recovery cases, not necessarily right this minute, and especially not "yesterday"!

Best wishes to all viewing this blog. I hope you will return often in the future to learn more, and even better, to contribute to learning by blog visitors, too!