By Barbara Nefer
Bloodhounds are expert at finding things, but
what do you do when the bloodhound is the
one who goes missing? “I had a trained bloodhound
named A. J. that I used on missing persons cases,” former policewoman Kat Albrecht explains. “One
day he escaped into the woods. Police dogs are only
authorized to look for missing persons, so I was on my
own even though I was part of the department. I called
my friend Jeannie, who had trained her golden retriever
to track people. She understood how to follow scents,
so instead of sniffing a pillow and tracking a human,
we had her smell a stinky dog blanket. She found my
bloodhound within 20 minutes.”
This happy ending ignited a spark of inspiration in Kat’s
mind. “Dogs can detect all sorts of things like mold and
termites, so why not train one as an animal detector?
Why wasn’t anyone training dogs to find lost pets?”
Persistence pays off
Kat posted her idea on an internet forum for trackers. To
her surprise, the normally chatty group responded with
a resounding silence. Finally one person commented: “Why would we waste our time training a dog for
that?” Kat let it drop but says the idea continued to
haunt her.
Eventually, she decided to take action on her own. She
set about the task of training a retired corpse detection
dog named Rachel to track companion animals. Rachel,
a Weimaraner, quickly caught on. She found two lost
cats and a dog in her first four searches. “At that point
I realized I was on to something,” says Kat. “It was a
major paradigm shift in my life. I knew the idea was
bigger than me, and I had to find a way to make it
happen.”
Her first attempt was in 1997. “I saw an Oprah episode
on volunteerism and decided I needed a non-profit
organization. I wanted to help as many people as
possible, and teaching people to train dogs seemed to
be the way to do it.” This initial effort lasted two years,
but the group was unable to get non-profit status due
to Kat’s inexperience. Next, she tried it as a business,
but that faltered too.
Despite all this, Kat remained committed to the idea
and refused to give up. “There is a real need for this
service,” she says. “Animal groups like the American
Humane Association have disaster teams that respond
to major events, but what about the everyday disaster
of losing a beloved cat or dog? So many pets end up
euthanized in shelters or living in feral colonies because
their people never find them. So many lives could be
saved if a Missing Animal Response team could get
there right after a cat or dog escapes. There is funding
and grants for things like spay/neuter, but we couldn’t
find anything to finance this kind of service.”
In 2005, Kat launched a nationwide effort to train animal
detectives to track missing dogs and cats. “We had
seminars across the country and trained 150 people,” she said. “Some were good, but others did things in
questionable ways. It takes 18 months to properly train
a dog, but some were rushing the process and charging
hefty fees. That prompted me to take a hard look at
how we were doing things.”
Finding lost friends
Three years later, Kat renewed her original plan of
creating a non-profit organization dedicated to the
recovery of lost companion animals, and the Missing
Pet Partnership (missingpetpartnership.org) was
finally born. The organization offers tracking services and
advice on finding lost animals. “We changed our goal to
training volunteer teams,” she says. The organization is
based in Seattle, Washington. “We need to make this work
in one city so it can be a blueprint for other locations, from
Los Angeles to New York.”
The Missing Pet Partnership currently has a core of 30
volunteers, with 12 people who actively take dogs out on
cases. Three dogs are certified to track cats, three to find
other dogs, and two more canines are close to certification. “It takes a very flexible schedule to be able to do searches,
and the volunteers all have full-time jobs, so the searches
are limited right now,” Kat says. But the group also helps
in many other ways, including a robust website filled with
animal recovery information and a telephone helpline.
As of this past summer, the Missing Pet Partnership has
assisted nearly 300 people, with 71 calls coming in on the
Fourth of July alone (many animals bolt in fear at the sound
of fireworks).
The group is very persistent when needed. They recently
recovered a dog that had been on the run for four months.
The crafty canine was too smart for baited traps, but was
eventually lured with a “magnet” dog and captured. Kat
says it took nine volunteers and a dose of tranquilizer
slipped in food to finally accomplish the task. She gets
creative when the situation requires it, even constructing
a drop net for certain rescues.
Kat emphasizes that it’s critical to understand how lost cats
and dogs respond when they’re frightened by fireworks or
have simply got out of the house. “Dogs run when they’re
panicked, and cats hide,” she explains. “You shouldn’t call
a panicked dog, even though that’s the natural reaction.
When you call and pat your legs, the dog sees that as a
dominant, threatening gesture. We instruct people how
to calm the dog down so they can catch him. Dogs are
usually eventually picked up by people, so we recommend
a ‘marketing campaign’ with neon posters.
“Escaped cats look for the first place they can hide,” Kat
adds. “Often they’re under a neighbor’s deck or somewhere
else in the area, so you can catch them with a humane
trap.”
Although the group’s main focus is felines and canines, two
percent of their calls involve other animals such as turtles
and ferrets. Two dogs are being trained to follow specific
scents so they can track these particular species.
The Missing Pet Partnership is funded entirely by donations,
fund raisers and search fees. A search costs $250, although
phone advice and website access is free. Professional
animal detectives often charge $800 or more. Kat says she
hopes to eventually get grants and corporate sponsorships
because she wants to make search services available and
affordable everywhere in the country.
The organization always needs more funds and volunteers.
Though it’s still in its early stages, Kat’s eventual dream is to
be funded, staffed and training Missing Animal Response
teams across the United States. “You can find every other
service out there under the sun for animals, like vet care,
pet sitting and even massage, but when they get lost,
you’re on your own,” she says. “That’s exactly what we
want to change.” |
