I learned this from a rescue friend years ago.? People traveling with their Dogs should always have a picture with them in case something goes wrong and the Dog is separated from them.?? Now that so many travel with their laptops they’re likely to have a picture file with them so they can bang out a flier and print it off at a local copy shop.
Here’s the definitive site for making a flier,
http://www.lostdogsearch.com/fliersandsigns.htm
I met a Dogger who had actually lost his Dog, a Samoyed, while on vacation in Michigan.? He went to the fireworks for the 4th of July with his entire family, including Snowball the Dog, and Snowball *freaked and ran*.? He extended his stay and found Snowball a week later, in a shelter.? She had a broken leg that had not been treated due to having been hit by a car but he was able to bring her to the vet’s and get the leg cared for before flying home with his Dog.
You never know when something is going to go wrong so it is easier to travel prepared to *act* should you need to do so.
Last week I was sent a post about a missing Lab who’s owner didn’t want to list her contact information or her Dogs name and she requested that anyone who saw her Dog contact the police with information.? I’ve seen Lost Dog posts saying that the owner will only deal with people in email.
When your Dog is lost time matters more than anything else and phone contact is the fastest, most effective way to get the information you need.? If you are afraid of giving out your phone number then take Mary’s advice and buy a throwaway phone and take the messages off of it.
As soon as you realize that your Dog is missing you need to put up flyers with a phone contact on them.? Most people have cell phones now so when they see your Dog the most natural thing for them to do is call you.? Make that easy for them.
Before I go any further, I want to give a huge shout out to Lisa Westwell for donating her time and talent in the building of www.lostdogsearch.com. We will never know how many terrified Dog owners this site has helped or how many dogs are home right now because Lisa believed so strongly in Debbie’s work that she put the site up as a gift to Dog people everywhere.
I met Debbie in March of 2001 when I was working to find a Lost Dog named Tia. Together, Debbie and I brainstormed constantly to research the best ways to bring lost Dogs in and to put together what we thought would work. This is also when I met my fellow Dog Chick, Mary because she came down to help us look and also gave us all kinds of information to help us move forward. Debbie lived near where Tia was missing and went to the site every day to check the trap and change the food and to canvass the neighborhood trying to find the latest Tia sightings. She was amazing and I went from being her partner to being her sounding board. Debbie and I were battling time in our quest for Tia because she was in an area filled with frozen ponds and they were all beginning to melt. We lost that battle.
Losing Tia broke so many hearts but Debbie and I made ourselves a promise that Tia’s life and death would not be in vain. Debbie began sifting through all of the information she’d collected and within a few months she was working to bring in a lost Sheltie named Prince. She tracked him for at least a month and when she was able to get him back she called me crying because what we had so wished to be able to do with Tia had worked for Prince. From that moment on Debbie worked on lost Dog case after lost Dog case. Some she won and some she did not but she gave so much of her life and her self to the plight of these animals and their truly desperate owners.
Lisa Westwell used Debbie’s system to help catch a Dog who’d jumped out of a rescuers car at a rest stop (note to all rescuers: don’t open up the back of your suv with an off leash and terrified rescue dog in it) and was able to lure Maggie into the totally humane trap. At that point, Lisa was hooked not just on helping lost Dogs but also on Debbie’s brilliant system. This one lost and found Dog is the reason for the magnificent web site that is helping all Dog owners to this day.
Interestingly, just three years after getting involved in Lost Dogs Debbie was interviewed by the New Yorker about her work. That’s a pretty big distance to travel in such a short period of time. They got her name based on a Lost Dog she’d consulted on in Atlanta, GA. Interestingly, the other party they interviewed was very clear about the fact that he got involved with Lost Dogs for the money. Debbie charges nothing for helping people because she does it for the love of the reunion and because nothing makes her happier than knowing that the Dogs she’s looking for make it back home again.
She is truly a Hero to both Dogs and Doggers and even a few Cat’s out there. I’m going to be picking her brain for information in the future but for now I’d suggest that you all bookmark www.lostdogsearch.com and that you share it with all of your dog friends. Should you ever be separated from your beloved Pooch you need to begin a well planned search the moment you realize there is a problem. And if you are friends with anyone who does rescue make sure they have this as rescues have contact with Lost Dogs through their own rescues and when people contact them for help. Information is power and you will get none better than can be found on this site.
