Kat's most frequently asked questions and answers. . .
Q: Your book is filled with stories of how you responded with your search dogs to find lost pets. Aren’'t you still doing that?
A: Yes, but only on a limited local level. The lost pet rescue stories in my book reflect a period of my life (1997 – 2000) when I was actively searching for lost pets and was physically able to do so. Now that my book has been published, I have shifted from the role of responding to searches as a pet detective to training and certifying other pet detectives through Pet Hunters International, the world’'s first pet detective academy.
Q: Your book The Lost Pet Chronicles mentioned you and your dogs moved into a "promising new season as pioneering pet detectives." Do you plan to write a second book about your pet rescue searches?
A: I am already working on a pet detective mystery for young adults, but it needs to be polished before I can sell it. In addition, I just published my second book DOG DETECTIVES: Train Your Dog Find Lost Pets (Dogwise, November 2008).
Q: I want to train my dog to find lost pets. Can you tell me how to do this?
A: Yes. My new book DOG DETECTIVES: Train Your Dog to Find Lost Pets (Dogwise, November 2008) will instruct you in how to train your dog while also describing opportunities to work or volunteer in the emerging pet detective industry
Q: Is there anything that I can do to help you develop lost pet services?
A: Yes! As you read in The Lost Pet Chronicles, I founded a national, 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation called Missing Pet Partnership (MPP). Founded in 2001, the development of MPP has been painfully slow. In spite of the fact that the lost pet behavior information posted on our web site and our dedicated volunteers have helped to recover thousands of lost pets, our funds and resources have been limited. We need donations, we need volunteers who can help with fundraising, we need qualified board members with various business skills, and we need assistance with marketing. For more information on how you can help facilitate the development of community-based lost pet services, visit www.lostapet.org.
Questions About Lost Pets
Q: My pet is lost--can you help me?
A: Yes and no. Yes, I (Kat Albrecht, Pet Detective) can help you by referring you to resources and information. A listing of Pet Hunters certified Missing Animal Response (MAR) Technicians (some with search dogs trained to find lost pets) can be found on Missing Pet Partnership’'s web site. Innovative information on lost pet behavior and law enforcement-based techniques that you can use to search for a lost pet can be found on Missing Pet Partnership’'s web site. In addition, some of the other FAQ responses on this page might answer your question about lost pets.
Q: Why aren't animal shelter workers giving out the type of lost pet advice that you give out?
A: One major factor is the lack of education--for both cat owners and shelter workers. Animal shelters are in the business of housing and sheltering animals. Animal Control Officers are in the business of capturing stray dogs and cats that are visible or in a known location. Neither is in the business of responding to missing pet incidents and they are (probably) not trained in how and where to search for a missing pet. Missing Pet Partnership will change that by providing training and educational materials to shelter staff that can be passed on to pet owners who visit the lost pet counter when searching for a lost pet.
Q: What other type of advice can you offer?
A: A cat with a skittish, shy temperament will almost always hide in silence when it is displaced in unfamiliar territory, and using a baited humane trap as a recovery tool is a highly effective means to recover a lost cat. But most cat owners don’t know this and most animal shelter workers don’t know this! That is why I wrote The Lost Pet Chronicles—so I could help educate pet owners and shelter workers by translating my years of training in the science of finding lost people to the science of finding lost pets. Just educating cat owners about "The Silence Factor" (a panicked cat behavior where they hide nearby and will not break cover or meow) has helped many people recover their cat. Some cats might return home after several days (if they reach the "Threshold Factor" where they become hungry and thirsty enough to break cover), but oftentimes a humane trap is needed to apprehend them.
If most cat owners knew how and where to search for their lost cat, we would probably see a dramatic drop in the stray cat populations. If shelter workers understood that a hissing, spitting cat in a humane trap is NOT necessarily a feral, wild cat, we would have more shelter cats returned to their owners. If TNR groups understood that the skittish "feral" cat that runs and hides when they approach could actually be someone's panicked lost PET (the house cat that would run and hide under the bed when a stranger entered the home), and if they made an aggressive attempt to research lost cat reports from prior months, we would see more cats returned to their home. Even if TNR groups scanned all cats for microchips, no matter how "feral" the cat acts, we would return more lost cats to their homes. Many lost, displaced cats will not break cover (during daylight hours) for weeks or months, long after their owners have given up. If they eventually end up in a shelter, no one claims them and they do not stand a chance of survival.
In addressing the crowded shelters and feral cat problem, the animal welfare field emphasizes spay/neuter solutions, but NOTHING is being done to recover missing dogs and cats! Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dogs and cats are lost every year (we really don't know how many because shelters are not required to keep records) that are never found. These animals are not vanishing into thin air – they are ending up somewhere other than home. Many lost dogs end up in rescue groups and lost cats end up in feral cat colonies. The central clearinghouse in law enforcement for a lost person is 9-1-1, but with lost pets, it should be (but seldom is) the local animal shelter. This is because a majority of people who FIND a stray dog or stray cat refuse to take the animal to the shelter or even call and notify the shelter that they found and have the animal. This is because they fear the animal will be destroyed—a very justified fear! But the result of this is that the PRIMARY location where the owner is searching (the local shelter) is often the LAST place that someone who finds it will take it. We actually do a better job of locating missing (stolen) VEHICLES than we do of recovering missing pets. Something needs to change! You can support Missing Pet Partnership’s efforts to provide training to animal shelter staff, volunteers, rescue groups, and animal welfare organizations by making a tax-deductible donation. For more information, visit www.lostapet.org.
Q: My cat has been missing for six weeks. Is there any hope? At what point should I give up and stop searching?
A: Suzy who was lost for two months but was found simply because HER OWNER REFUSED TO GIVE UP. The moment you give up your efforts is when your chances of recovery end. Make sure that you have done everything in your power and followed the advice here and on Missing Pet Partnership’'s web site before you let go. Do not let grief avoidance cause you to end your search too soon. It is easier for you (and more tempting) to give up and let go than it is to endure the fear and grief as you search for your lost pet. Here is a story I shared recently about how one of my volunteers recovered a neighbor’s lost cat—you need this type of patience and perseverance:
I just wrapped up teaching an MAR (missing animal response) technician course (on lost cat behavior and trap-and-reunite strategies). During the first week of training, one of the new students in the class told us about how her neighbor's indoor-only cat had escaped four months ago from her home while the neighbor was moving. This student had actually seen the "lost" cat run under a neighbor's deck a week after it was missing. She had never heard of using traps to recover a lost cat and asked to borrow my trap so she could help recover the cat. She spent week after week setting the trap and catching many other cats, but not the missing cat. (She was only keeping the trap in the area where she had seen that cat.) After four weeks, she was ready to give up. But during the fifth week of class, I discussed trap placement strategies and a method of expanding out and moving the traps if you are not catching the missing cat. I explained that the cat would seek out the quietest place and would be more likely to hide in a yard with no dogs. The volunteer took the trap home again and began walking down the alley behind her home and bypassed all the houses that had dogs. She came upon two houses that did not have dogs---one house had a groomed lawn with few hiding places and the other yard had a rickety, rundown shed. She set the trap near the shed, chained it to a post there, and went home. She came back two hours later and she had captured the missing cat! The cat had traveled three houses down and across the alley to a yard that was quiet. A volunteer who BELIEVED she could recover this cat that was "lost" for five months was able to stick with it for five weeks and was successful. But so often, the grief and pain that a cat owner feels will force them to give up too soon because it just becomes too hard. That is why success stories like this and the encouragement and support available through resources listed at Missing Pet Partnership’'s web site are vital. YOU CAN GET YOUR CAT BACK!!! If my volunteer can do it, YOU CAN TOO!
Q: My outdoor-access cat has been missing for several days. I’ve called his name, posted flyers, checked the shelter, and put an ad in the paper. What else can I do?
A: Have you crawled on your stomach under all of your neighbor’'s houses within a 3-house radius of the farthest edge of your cat’'s territory? If your cat has vanished and it is not coming home, it is likely that something is preventing it from returning--physically or behaviorally. It could be trapped (under a house, in a shed, up a tree, etc.) or injured or hiding in fear (behavioral) or someone took it inside or it was transported out of the area. You should obtain permission from all of your neighbors to search under their house and in all hiding places in their front, side, and back yards. One woman recently discovered that her cat, who was "lost" for two weeks was trapped under a neighbor’s house two doors down. She had asked the neighbor to "look" for her cat, but never asked if she could search their yard herself. The cat was dehydrated and hungry, but fine. Outdoor-access cats are territorial and unless you have physically searched the entire area, you reduce your chances of locating your cat. Do not simply ask your neighbor to look for your cat because their idea of looking is to call you if they see your cat in their yard. Give them a flyer and ask them to call you if they see your cat, hear any unusual noises, or even if they detect the odor of decomposition. Also, stress the importance of allowing you to search their property for your hidden or trapped cat. Read the story about Albert and learn from his owner’s mistake of assuming that Albert had been killed by a coyote, when he was actually trapped in a neighbor’s basement for weeks.
Q: In your book, you mention that very few pets are stolen and sold to research lab, but I frequently hear that they are. What are your sources on "The Pet Theft Myth" and how I can find out more about this topic?
A: The individuals who adamantly claim that pets are stolen and sold for laboratory research are often animal rights organizations opposed to using animals in research. Their intent may be to scare pet owners (fearing their lost pet might end up in a research lab) into supporting their cause, which is to end all research work on animals. As I stated in my book, I believe pet theft does occur, just not to the degree that is claimed.
If we ever hope to develop a system for recovering lost (and stolen) pets, we must develop training materials and provide information that will show pet owners how and where to focus their search efforts. Pet owners who falsely believe that their pet was stolen and sold to a research lab often fail to search the likely locations where their lost pet might actually be—in a local shelter, under a neighbor’s deck, fostered out by a local rescue group, or up for adoption at a weekly adoption event held at a local pet store.
Below is a summary of my experience and knowledge of pet theft:
"Sometimes, what a pet owner believes can hinder efforts to recover a lost pet. One of the most common tunnel-vision theories that I encountered was the belief that a pet had been "stolen." While theft was a possibility in a few instances, my research indicated that in most missing pet cases theft was not very likely. I discovered that there is a "Pet Theft Myth" that many people have bought into. It is a belief perpetuated on the Internet and even by a few animal welfare organizations that "millions" of dogs and cats are "stolen" every year and sold to research facilities where they are used in scientific experiments. While the USDA licenses "Class B" animal dealers to sell animals to laboratories for research, many of the dogs and cats used in research are actually provided by dealers who breed dogs specifically for use in research. Others dogs and cats are legally sold to Class B dealers by animal shelters when no one shows up at the shelter (within the 72 hour holding period) to claim the animal.
The process of selling animals for research could certainly result in unclaimed, lost pets ending up in research. But the misconception that Class B dealers are lurking around neighborhoods across the country, looking to snatch up dogs and cats from their yards, in order to sell them to research has just not been proven. The Foundation for Biomedical Research has indicated on their web site (www.pettheftmyth.org) that, "the total number of dogs and cats used for research in 2001 was 92,837" and that "many of these animals were bred specifically for research and were never pets."
And the biomedical research industry is not the only resource that has attempted to expose this myth. In 1991, Merritt Clifton, editor of the animal protection publication called Animal People, conducted a study of pet theft in the United States. Clifton stated that after his study, he realized that many animal advocates "had been made hyper-aware of pet theft over the years by animal rights literature." Interestingly enough, when Clifton collected data from people outside of the animal advocate arena, he found these people, general pet owners, "had no more awareness of pet theft than anyone else at random. When they lost a pet, they saw much less pet theft, and much more road-kill, predation, animal control pickup- the whole mix of normal occurrences." Clifton concluded by stating, "Since then, I have come to suspect that the total volume of pet theft for lab use isn’t likely to be much more than a low multiplier of the number of confirmed cases: 10 or less." Somewhere between the claim of "millions" and "10 or less" lies the truth.
I'm not saying that pets are never stolen. I do know of clear cases of pet theft, including dogs stolen by gangs for use in illegal dog fighting rings and purebred dogs and show cats that were stolen to either breed or to resell for a profit. I’ve also seen cases where people have actually "rescued" a dog by committing a theft. I know of one woman who removed a cocker spaniel from her neighbor’s yard and gave it to a friend because the owners of the dog kept it as an outside dog and "never gave it attention." In another case, a man I know picked up a stray dog that he knew belonged to a drug dealer who lived down the street. Instead of returning the dog to the owner, he transported it to a rescue facility where the dog was eventually adopted out to a new home.
In another case, a woman from Northern California called me in tears, saying that her husband had lost their Labrador while hiking in the mountains. Before she spoke to me, she had called an animal organization where a staff member convinced her that her dog was likely picked up by a Class B dealer and sold to research. It took me twenty minutes to calm this woman down and convince her that the chances that a Class B dealer was hiking in the same area of the woods where her dog had just become lost were about as likely as the suggestion that an alien had abducted her dog. I was able to give her instructions on how and where to focus her search, advising her that there was a high likelihood that her dog would be found by someone who assumed, because it was running alone in the wilderness, that it has been "dumped" there by an uncaring owner.
From what I’'ve observed, more lost dogs and cats were killed every year by owners who believed their pet was "stolen for research" than were ever actually killed in research facilities. That’s because many of the pet owners who bought into the pet theft myth stopped searching. They failed to conduct an aggressive search like Jan used to recover her golden retriever Cash or Catherine used to recover her cat Tony from the roofer’s van. Sadly, whatever a pet owner believes has happened to their pet will influence how well they will search, how long they will search and, thus, will reduce the chances of a successful recovery."
As a side note, the people who claim that "millions" of pets are stolen and sold to research happen to consider it "theft" when someone responds to a "FREE TO GOOD HOME" ad, and then sells that pet (that they adopted for free) to research. Although falsely adopting an animal and turning around and selling it to research is definitely cruel and should be stopped, it is not theft and should not be classified in the same way that removing a dog or cat from your yard should be classified. If missing pets end up in research labs, it is more likely because they were unclaimed strays at local animal shelters that held the animal for 72 hours, then turned around and sold them to researchers (so the shelter could profit) rather than destroy it. The issue of shelters selling surplus animals to research might be horrific, but for the purposes of missing pets, this practice should not be called "pet theft!"
Here are a few more sources of information available on "the pet theft myth" that you can research for yourself.
What do USDA "Animal Use" numbers mean?
.All contents © 2007-2008 Kat Albrecht. All Rights Reserved.