Little dog lost

Recent thread on ShowCardi-L chat group is about lost dogs. Thanks my friend Barb for putting this up for discussion. There have been lots of dogs lost recently and no time better than the present to post some simple suggestions from the list as well as a few more, should you ever lose your dog.

#1 item is to throw pride and shame of loosing your pet out the window and do what’s best for the dog. The more people you enlist, the more emails that get sent out, the greater chances of finding your dog and bringing them home. And the sooner, the better.

Make sure you have identification on or in your dog. Collars with your cell and home numbers on them are best. A rabies tag with your vets information. Microchips and having that information handy. Current photos of your dog showing head, side and something to reference size-table, chair, etc.

Don’t go twenty directions calling your dog’s name. Follow known paths you’ve been, houses you’ve visited and heck, know where the intact dogs are in your neighborhood. Hormones lead to a lot of “lost” dogs. At some point, it’s best to stay in one area and call for your dog. Give them a stationary point of reference to come to rather than a moving target. Especially helpful if lost in pastures, fields and wooded areas.

Contact the animal shelter and make sure they know what your dog or your breed of dog looks like. Leave photos, posters, contact information. Take a dog of the same breed in and have the shelter employees get a firs-hand look at the type of dog.

Posters-short and to the point: breed, age, distinquising marks, health issues, identification(collar, chipped). Temperament-shy, spooky, friendly. Intact? When the dog disappeared and how to contact you as well as a secondary contact person.

Where to post? Animal shelters, vets offices, pet stores, neighbors, school bus drivers, any sort of regular delivery person in your area. The post office, mailman. Hand them out of your baby sitters. In rural areas, feed delivery guys, route salesman, utility people, cable installers, and I can go on and on.

Email to friends, give permission to cross post. You never know if a friend of your brother’s co-worker might see the email and go—you know I think I saw that dog last night on the way home! Or that you might get an email from a friend of a friend who lives in Texas that knows you live in the area of the lost dog. The world really is a small place.

Speaking of the mighty internet, there are some great websites that can help. Yahoo chat group K9 Amber Alert is one. Breed rescue websites can help, the infamous Facebook as lost pet groups. Petfinder has a lost pet page, FidoFinder, FindToto, just to name a few.

If in areas where it’s wooded, dense vegetation, take a long another dog that your dog knows(if it’s an only dog) or one of its house mates. Leave a trail out and then follow the same trail back to the house.

Leave out food and water and some sort of shelter(it's crate for example) for your dog in case it comes back when you are gone. Do so in such a place that you can shut a gate or door so that the dog can’t bolt or run away if you scare it.

Last resorts are live traps available from many humane societies, DNR and animal rescues.

Hope this helps anyone that might lose a dog in the future.

Additonal suggestions in the comments area would be awesome, 'cause there's always things I never think about that will work!

Later gators....
C