Lost Dog

This is information I have posted for my Members at my WhippetTalk Forums. So when you see references to whippets and greyhounds, you will know why! But it doesn't matter what breed, the concept is the same.

START SEARCH PROCEDURES IMMEDIATELY BEFORE DOG HAS TIME TO GO FAR. REMEMBER 90 PERCENT OF LOST DOGS ARE FOUND WITHIN TWO MILES OF WHERE THEY WERE LOST.

1. Mobilize all available help (family, neighbors, dog club members) and assign tasks to each person.

2. Prepare a written description with the dog's name, your veterinarian's name and your name, plus phone numbers. (An 8 1/2 x 11 master can be copied and, unless the whole page is necessary, cut into smaller areas duplicating the info.)

3. Drive or walk through the neighborhood calling the dog. Have two people in the car one driving, the other looking for the dog. Be cautious calling for the dog at busy intersections...your dog may try to cross the street to get to you.

4. Notify all residents of the immediate area to be on the lookout for the dog.

5. If your dog is friendly to strangers, check parks and schools.

6. If your dog is shy, frightened or may be injured, check places that offer it instinctual seclusion.

7. Leave the dog's crate where the dog was last seen with articles of clothing bearing your scent.

8. Leave the gate to your yard open in case the dog returns home on its own.

9. Try to locate the owner of a trained tracking dog. If you don't know of anyone, a local rescue club or tracking club may be willing to help.

10. Contact emergency animal hospitals throughout the area leaving the written information with authorization you will be responsible for any medical attention your dog may need if brought to them.

IF THE DOG IS NOT FOUND WITHIN A FEW HOURS, START MORE DETAILED MEASURES.

1. Print and deliver flyers; most owners of lost dogs use about 2,000.

2. Notify county animal control officials and all local animal shelters. Policies vary so ask questions and keep records of each center. Some shelters maintain lost-dog reports and contact owners if the dog is brought in. Some only follow up if the dog carries license tags, others must be contacted on a daily basis.

3. Notify all law enforcement agencies police, highway patrol and sheriffs cover different areas.

4. Advertise in the local papers offering a reward for information leading to the dog's recovery.

5. Check with local radio and TV stations; some broadcast news about missing pets.

6. Notify local dog clubs, all breed, obedience and specialty ones.

7. Email dog subscriber lists with the written information with an email return address; if not your own, cite one of a friend who will telephone you with any replies.

8. Leave your answering machine on 24 hours daily; if you don't own one, buy one immediately so no calls will be missed.

9. Do not dismiss any leads no matter how remote they seem.

10. Consider consulting with a specialist in finding lost animals.

IF THE DOG ISN'T FOUND WITHIN SEVERAL DAYS OR A WEEK, IT MAY HAVE LEFT THE IMMEDIATE AREA. OR, WHOEVER FOUND IT IS KEEPING IT. REMEMBER LOST DOGS HAVE BEEN RECOVERED AFTER MANY MONTHS, PLUS RECOVERED AS MUCH AS 300 MILES FROM WHERE THEY DISAPPEARED.

1. Expand the search to surrounding towns and repeat all of the above for each.

2. Notify organizations that alert laboratories using animals for experimentation, giving a description especially a tattoo number if existing.

If you recover your dog, do not express anger! Instead, let your dog know how happy you are to see it. Have a treat ready when you do find your dog.

Unknown author.

Finding Your Lost Greyhound (or Whippet)
by Michael McCann

Okay, you've lost him. He slipped his collar, or ran out of the open gate; He was spooked by lightning and jumped the back fence; You dropped the leash, or you let him run off lead, he saw a squirrel and suddenly he was gone. How he was lost doesn't really matter now: What matters is the steps you have to take to get him back. He's out there and he's depending on you to find him. He's lost and can't find his way home. It's been a couple of hours now: You've scoured the neighborhood, and you are hoping to see him in every yard and around every corner. But, you are beginning to realize that you can't find him. Here's what you have to do:

Change your mindset: This is most important, and most difficult step. You have to stop checking every street and back yard yourself, and start recruiting an army to do it for you. Most greyhounds are found within a mile or two of where they were lost, but a two mile radius is nearly 13 square miles, an impossible area to search adequately alone. You have to stop looking for your dog, and start looking for people. Everything that follows depends on it. With every hour that goes by, your chances of finding your dog, on your own, diminish. You now have to find someone who has seen your dog. You need a sighting and in order to get a sighting , you need help! Ask everyone you know, including your friends, co workers, adoption group and son's cub scout pack to help you. Don't wait until tomorrow, do it now.

Get the word out: Whether you have help or not, you've got to get the word out about your lost dog. You and your volunteers are going to search yes, but while you're searching, you're going to post flyers on every available telephone pole, in every super market, drug store, school, church, police stations, vets' office or any other public place surrounding the area. Ninety percent of lost dogs who are found, are found because someone saw a flyer. The flyers don't have to be fancy, but get them printed on the brightest,most fluorescent paper available. "LOST GREYHOUND" In big letters."If sighted please call (555)555~5555 " a silhouette of a running greyhound works great as an attention grabber. 500 of them is a good start, but you may need more. The area should be so saturated with flyers that you can't turn around without seeing one. Don't expand your search area until you've totally covered the area where he was last seen. Knock on doors and talk to everyone you see; the mail person, the UPS driver, the local landscaper. Any of these people may see your dog, and if they do, now they won't just think it's some dog on his way home, they'll know he's lost. Give everyone you talk to a flyer.

Schools are a great resource for search help. Ask the principal to make announcements about the lost dog and leave flyers to pass out and post on bulletin boards.. Kids see everything in the neighborhood but will ignore dogs running around unless asked to look. If you hand one kid a flyer, five more will have seen it by the end of the day. Don't ignore the little kids either. They tell their folks everything.

Call every veterinarian's office, animal control officer and police department within two or three miles from where he was last seen. In rural areas, expand your calling to every nearby town. Follow up with a flyer or several. Faxing them will save you some time but it is important that they see you, rather than just a piece of paper. If you show people how concerned you are, they'll want to help you. Don't just call them once, call them every few days and in the case of the police, during every shift, to make sure everyone knows about your dog.

Run newspaper ads in the local papers, and while you're at it, talk to a reporter and see if she'll run a local interest story on the lost greyhound. Local cable access stations often will run your lost dog ad for free and local radio stations and TV stations will often run the story on a slow news night.

Check your local animal shelters every few days, in person. It is amazing how many folks who work in these places don't know dog breeds. Your greyhound could be hanging out at a local shelter, up for adoption, because they think he's a Whippet or a Doberman mix.

Get in touch with your local Department of Public Works, or Highway Department. Sadly, they often will pick up an animal's body from the road, and if there is no identification, the owner will never know. Collars often fall off when a dog is loose or struck by a car.
Tools you'll need: Print some maps of your area to give to the volunteers. Make notations of areas that have been well posted. Set up grids and utilize them to cover all the locations in your search area. Send teams to each grid area Get some heavy duty staple guns and use those for putting up your flyers on telephone poles and clear packing tape for other hard surfaces (Don't use duct tape; it looks messy and some localities bristle at having these flyers posted; you want the locals helping you, not trying to shut your search down). If available, try to keep in touch with your teams with cell phones, or walkie talkie so that when you get a sighting, you can have them go immediately to the sight.

Make sure that there is always someone available at the phone number you posted. You don't want people to call with a sighting, then hang up because they got a message service.

Don't assume anything: Don't assume your dog has been picked up, it's the trap that everyone seems to fall into: "No sighting, someone must have picked up my dog!". Greyhounds are notorious for disappearing in the woodwork. A person can walk right by a brindle Greyhound laying in a pile of leaves and never even see him. Some go for months or even years without being found, because people assume they have been picked up or are dead.

Don't assume that the call you got about a dog five miles away is yours. Follow it up, yes, but when you start getting calls about dogs, ask questions: What color was the dog you saw? How big? Which way was it heading? What time and on what day did you see him? Have you ever seen him before? You don't want to be running out of your sea

A lost or missing dog locating service that can dramatically increase the chances of finding your lost dog, missing cat, or stolen pet. Our amber alert lost pet service should be used in conjunction with other traditional methods of trying to locate a missing pet, such as posting flyers, going to local shelters, and posting lost pet ads in local and community newspapers.

We're here to help make sure you do everything reasonably possible to bring your lost dog or missing cat home. By having the ability to call 1000's of neighbors and mail shelters/vets where your pet was lost, we can geographically target a large area and quickly provide lost pet details to everyone in that area.

Virtual Leash allows you to maintain a unique website (a.k.a. online profile) for your pet with unlimited emergency contacts that can be instantly notified. The website can send you, and your emergency contacts, messages through email, Twitter, text message and voicemail when your pet is found. Virtual Leash also uses Google Maps to show potential finders a safe place for your pet. You can change this address easily and at anytime.

Your pet's unique website is printed on a tag (along with your phone number) and worn by your pet. Your pet's website can be updated as you move, travel or even when they are at a pet sitters for the weekend.

Having identification on your dog will help assuming you didn't the dog in the first place because they backed out of the collar. Make sure you have up to date contact information on your tags. Having the right collar is very important too. With my whippets I use a Martingale style collar to help prevent them from backing out.

Martingale Style Collars



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