You're listening to Pack Life, and this is your host Meli. If you're interested in a bigger, better, more fulfilling life for you and your companion animals, then you're in the right place.
Let's go.
Hello everyone today on Pack Life. We are talking about what I think is a nightmare for many pet parents.
I know it's a nightmare for me.
And that is losing your dog.
I hope this never happens to you, but if it does, I think there's things you can do now to feel prepared, and like you're taking actions that will increase the chances that you will actually find your dog. Instead of feeling totally lost.
What I found is when I went to research this nightmare of mine and figure out what I could do to prepare a lot of what was on the internet was really basic. Things like having a flyer and having a collar with a tag with identifying information. And having your dog microchip to making sure that's registered.
But that didn't give me a lot of comfort with the idea that if I did lose my dog, I'd have to just sit and wait and hope somebody saw or found him.
Luckily I found an amazing human named Nelson Hodges that teaches a three day 32 hour deep dive course called lost on recovery. Nelson has been working with dogs professionally for over 40 years in a wide variety of disciplines, including search and rescue. And he also created a whole Institute, the canine human relationship Institute.
In today's show, clearly I'm not going to cover everything I learned in a 32- hour deep dive. But my goal is to share some of the pieces I took with me that I can cover in about 15 to 20 minutes. And that I think will help you increase the chance that you'll actually find your dog. If it ever gets lost.
If you like today's content. I highly recommend the full course and I'll tag Nelson, his Institute, and that course in the show notes.
This is a very information dense podcast. And I know when I was taking the course about lost dog recovery, I was scribbling frantically trying to get all the information down.
So I put all of these notes together with a checklist that is available for free in the show notes. You can print it out. You can follow along. If you want to put any of this into place, you can check things off. And that way, while this podcast is rolling, you can just relax and listen.
Let's start with those basics because they are important. Definitely have a collar. And on that collar have some kind of identifying information that is easy to see. Sometimes I pass a dog on the street and I'll be trying to get close to it, but it's afraid of me or, I can tell it's going to bolt. So then I'm trying to just get a picture of the dog. And the saddest thing for me is when there's a collar and I can actually even get a picture from maybe three, four feet away, but the text is really tiny and it's under the chin and I can't see the words.
So then I don't know what phone number to call. So that would be one. Another is to make sure your dog is microchipped and that it's registered. So if someone takes your dog to a vet or a shelter where they're going to search for that microchip, it will lead them back to you. With your current information, your current phone and address and all of that.
And every now and then at the vet, see if they can find your dog's microchip. Just because your dog was microchipped. Doesn't mean it's still active. Sometimes they can move and shift into the legs versus where they originally implanted. And nowadays there's lots of trackers.
So if this is a real concern for you, there are tons of colors. You can have your dog wear that will alert you when they leave the house and give you updates on where they are in real time.
But let's assume that unfortunately, your dog has gotten lost, and you don't have those things. Or, at least you don't have the tracker to tell you exactly where to go.
Moving on to the advanced stuff. Please know that I'm about to share some strategies that take time and energy to put together. And that benefit from teamwork.
If you feel you don't have the community, that's going to get up and mobilize with you to try to find your dog. You are not alone. Maybe you just moved into a new city. Maybe you were the only person in your whole circle of friends. That's cuckoo about dogs. The stuff I'm sharing today, there will be lots of pieces that you can do all by yourself. I'm going to continue to reference the team, but just know as you're listening, you can pick and choose which of these you could do solo and, which are going to be the most impactful for you. And make the plan just from that.
You will still be much more effective and better prepared than if you were making it up on the fly while you were stressed.
You don't have to do everything on this list to be prepared. And in fact, even if you take the one or two pieces that feel significant to you that save you time and energy, in an emergency, your time and your energy are really precious resources. So even that will have huge benefit. Finally, no search plan is perfect. And there is a chance that someone might drive by a house where your dog is hiding, not see your dog, drive away, and then your dog will come out. That's real life that could happen. Even knowing that, having some kind of system in place. Is really helpful and allows you to mobilize quickly versus trying to figure out what to do when you're already really stressed.
The next four things I think you can set up in advance and these are the ones that are going to save you a lot of time. The first is to have a leader that is going to lead the entire operation of searching for your dog. And this should be one point person who can be calm under the chaos and stick to the facts. So this may not be the person who lost the dog.
They may need to phone a friend. And if this is you, because this is probably me, I would want to teach my friend in advance everything that I'm sharing on this podcast. So should the time come, I could call and say "It happened. Can you lead this for me?" And they already know what to do. The reason it's important that they're calm under the chaos that they stick to the facts is this can be a highly emotionally charged environment.
And when we are in those big states of emotion, we are often less logical, especially if we are leaning toward panicking. Fight or flight. Then we want someone who is not in that space that can help us.
All right. The job of this leader is to do a really thorough intake of the dog. And if you are the dog owner and you feel like you're calm enough to do this, it's to provide a really detailed intake. What I mean is.
One have the photos, but detailed physical appearance, behavioral characteristics. We want to know, is that dog likely to come out to see humans? Are they approachable? Are they going to likely want to come out if there's another dog around? Are they going to be fearful? What's their personality? Are they aggressive?
Then travel characteristics. Is it a dog that's always got his nose to the ground and is following scent paths? Is it a dog who's nose is in the air? And a strong wind is really going to impact the direction it travels.
Is it a dog that walks slowly sniffs a long time and obsessive marks? Is it a lapdog? Is it an explorer? Is it a runner? Is it a slow dog? Any of these pieces of information will really help us.
If you can guess at motive, is it lost? Is it confused? Is there a chance it's on a mission? Husky's in the wild have a 10,000 mile territory, not picking on Huskies, but is it just a Husky on a walkabout exploring the world? Is it a dog that maybe is looking for a mate that smells dogs in heat? Is it a dog that recently moved to your house, that's looking for a previous home or owner. And if they've only been in your house for three days or less, they're not likely looking to come back to your house. That's part of the background you want is how long has the dog lived in this house?
Does it have a regular neighborhood routine or walk? What time did it escape? Where did it escape from? Who is it most bonded to? Was it solo? What direction was it heading?
All the details and again these questions will be included in the checklist that is linked in the show notes.
Recapping so far, the job of this leader is to do that very thorough intake. Then they're going to come up with the plan for the search. What actual areas are we searching? If you have anyone who's willing to help you drive around in their cars or walk around the community,
they're going to coordinate those people and tell them where to go, and be the check-in point for them. And the leader is going to give them equipment. What I mean by equipment is things like cards with contact information, so that if they are walking around, they see someone outside, they can say, "Hey, call here if you see this dog."
Flyers that were already going to have ready. So the leader is calm under chaos, able to stick to the facts, going to do an intake, going to be the main point person that plans where we're searching and how we're searching and is giving volunteers direction. This is really important because if there's not organization, a lot of good intention is wasted.
And if you have people who want to help, they need direction to be effective so that we aren't all looking at the exact same areas. And it's better to split people and cover more ground than to have four people in one car looking around the neighborhood. The other thing this leader will do is provide some information to any volunteers about:
how to search, not only are they going to know where to search, they're going to tell them how to search. And just to throw it in this podcast: we want to look for dog paths of travel, not humans. And so dogs tend to, especially dogs who are lost, they are more likely to stay in hiding and not travel on a street. A busy street with cars is going to be a barrier to a dog, not a way that they look at and go, "oh, I should run that way." Unless you have a dog that loves to chase cars, and you would know that from the very thorough intake.
So you're going to be looking closer to house lines, closer to bushes. If the weather is going to be an implication, if it's really hot and it's mid day likely the dog at some point is going to want to sit in the shade. So you're looking in shade, you're looking at other people's fences from the street.
And generally you're going to do a first round from the car. A second round on foot in that same area. If you saw anything from the car that you wanted to deeper dive and a third round where you're looking for humans, that you can say, "Hey, have you seen this dog?" Now, if you don't have the manpower for that.
You're going to try to do two in one. You're going to be driving. You're going to be talking to people. You're gonna be looking at property lines. But you definitely want a mark somewhere or , notate somewhere, the areas that you have already seen. So that you can track what routes have been covered and what routes have not at all.
Okay. So that was a lot of detail about the leader and some strategies while I was in there. But you're going to find this leader. You're going to make sure it's a person that loves dogs and loves you. If you're not comfortable being calm under the chaos of losing your own dog. Someone that will take the time to understand all of this and we'll help you.
And drop everything like, "oh, this is an emergency. I'm going." And if you don't have that person and it's you just having this stuff in order, even if you are not totally calm, having this stuff written down will help keep you organized. Okay. So that's your leader.
The next thing you need after the leader is your team. And these are the people who will help you. So if you have any friends, family who are willing to be live in cars or on foot driving around, looking for the dog, amazing, make sure that they don't have really loud engines or motorcycles because that tends to scare dogs off.
And the leader is going to tell them exactly what to do exactly where they're going and be available by phone to help give them direction. We're also going to make sure that any volunteers that see this dog know exactly what to do, meaning. Don't chase the dog and yell at it. Cause it's going to run away or , this dog is really going to respond well if you get low to the ground and toss some food. Or this dog is likely to come out if you bring out another dog. Or "Hey, if you see my dog, please don't get out of the car. Call me and I'll be there in a moment, keep eyes on it."
So we want to make sure that the team of people really know what to do. And again, that's going to come to the leader.
Then you have some people who maybe are not there in person, but could help you. A remote person, a family member that doesn't live here, could even do this. They're going to be your online phone and admin person.
The leader will send them a picture and they are going to start posting on all the local apps. Whether it's like Pawboost, next door. They're gonna be posting pictures of your dog on social media, Facebook, Instagram, any groups that they can find. Typically every group will have, like your city's lost dog on various social media sites.
So they're going to be searching and posting. And then, they're going to organize the numbers and call local animal services, shelters, rescue groups, and just put them on alert that you are looking for a dog. So these are all things that you can have in advanced prepared. In your community, you can already have these numbers set up. So that when your dog gets lost and you want someone to help you, you just send them this packet. "Hey, can you post my dog on all these sites? And can you please call these numbers and let them know what my dog looks like and see if we can email them a flyer."
So far, we talked about people who are actually going to go out in your community and help you physically look for the dog.
We talked about an online or phone support person. And now we're going to talk about people on the street that are already out there. Police officers, ups, FedEx, post office, food delivery, Uber and car services. People who are driving in your area are great people to ask. " have you seen a dog" .People working outside people cutting lawns.
Anyone that could have seen your dog. These are also people that I would consider on your team because you can ask them and you can tell them "I'm looking for this dog."
Then local businesses. If you know in advance that if my dog gets lost, I would want to post at this one, this one, and that one, cause there's a lot of foot traffic and they allow people to put flyers. Having that list of local businesses written down already, you can send people there as well.
Okay. Your leader. It's going to be the head honcho that tells everyone what they're doing. Make sure everyone is prepared. Has the plan and keeps checking in with people. Your team is the volunteers who will actually help you. It's going to be live on the floor. There's going to be online admin phone person. There are people out on the street already that might have information for you. And then there's local businesses. I would consider all of that, your team. And again, this is all based on Nelson stuff, but just really diluted, not as detailed information. I think still very helpful.
the next one that Nelson talked about was having a map and a plan. So you're going to pre plot resources and potential areas of travel. Now, there was a ton of great information about this. , more than I can include in this podcast. So if you have questions, please reach out to me. I will put you in touch with him and his team. What you could pre plot is just have a map of your neighborhood and you can get it on Google maps and just blow it up. And kind of know if my dog gets out, we tend to walk this route so likely he'll be somewhere here. Or we've never stepped outside the door, so we're just going to do a general radius in all four directions, as far as we can get starting close and moving out. That's as much as I'll say about mapping and planning.
And then the actual stuff I alluded to this before. But you want to have either business cards or some kind of card. If you want to go all in on this, you could even put your dog's picture on one side and a phone number on the other side. That when you do see someone like driving around the neighborhood or kids on bikes, you can be like, "Hey. If you see this dog, please call me" and they have your phone number there. They don't have to take out their phone. They don't have to write it down. And then the last is you want to have a template for a lost dog poster already ready. So you would make one now and periodically maybe every quarter, if your dog changes weight or is a quickly growing puppy. but a photo that's representative of what your dog looks like now already on a poster. And there's lots of apps and groups already have posters available that you can plug and play. And that way, if your dog gets lost, it's ready to print and you don't have to spend time trying to find a picture.
So this should include photo. weight. Name your dog's breed, sex age, any medical issues, how people can approach and a phone number. And again, I will have all of this listed in the template, so you can click on the link in the show notes.
Okay. So let's talk about a general, lost dog timeline.
Normal dog pace is about 2.5 times that of a human when they're just generally and happily trotting around.
And a dog running in a two hour period can cover miles. If it's an in-shape dog that's medium to large and travels nonstop, it can be four to five miles away within a couple of hours.
And lots of factors will affect the dog's speed of travel. And you're going to adjust where we're searching for a dog based on that. Small dogs don't tend to travel as fast and most people notice really big dogs. So medium dogs , tend to be the hardest to gauge like the appropriate speed or how far you think they may have gone.
Once a dog realizes its lost survival becomes the primary goal for the dog. And the most stressful thing in life is change. So a known area is going to be less dangerous than an unknown area, regardless of the association. This means even if a dog didn't have the best experience in a certain place, if they know that place, they are more likely to go there than somewhere they've never been before.
I'm going to just rattle out a couple chunks of this and then the rest will be on that handout. That's in the show notes. So between one minute and an hour, a dog is usually traveling or hiding. Within one to two hours, it'll start slowing down and looking around. Two to four hours, the area is starting to broaden.
Four to 12 hours, they're going to be thirsty. They're going to need shelter. , some dogs will hunker down at night and look for resources during the day, like food and water. But if it's a really nervous dog, they're going to do that backwards. They're going to hide during the day while there's lots of people out and about, and then they're going to be searching for resources at night.
Within two to three days, your dog is going to need to find a food resource and they can smell food from like two miles away. And the direction of wind becomes really important here because that's going to carry the scent of food.
Within a three to 10 day period, they're going to have an established area. And if they don't have resources and they're not comfortable, they're going to keep looking. Within 10 to 30 days, usually a dog has established good patterns.
At this point, the dog is starting to have more of a feral intent, meaning like, "okay, I'm going to have to live on my own." And if it's been more than a month, your dog is established out there living its own life.
So if a dog initially gets lost, you're going to have that team and that search going on to try to find them. Once they're more established dogs are going to be in a routine. So they're going to keep doing that routine. Once someone has cited the dog, typically if it's like 30 days out, they're going to see that dog again. And the dog is going to places repeatedly.
That really increases your chances of finding your dog. I want to tell you Nelson's final words after the seminar was never to give up. It might really be awful to think about.
wow, my dog might be out for a month. But he said that dogs have been found days, weeks, months, and even years after a search. And although search periods typically end after a few days, if you have a whole party, if you got a small party, it's probably going to end after a few hours and then it's just you, you want to continue staying in touch with any local community people, any businesses, any of the sites after that, keep the media going and photos out there.
Okay. So like I said, I hope this never happens to you. If it does, I think planning for it now, getting some of these resources together, even if you're like "that list is exhausting and I barely have time to eat dinner." Pick one or two things that you think will give you the most bang for your buck, knowing your specific dog, your community, and your situation.
And I think just gathering those couple things will still be beneficial.
I hope this supports you. I know this is a little bit of a heavy topic, but my sincere intention is that having this information will help you to find your dog faster if they ever get lost.
Huge gratitude to Nelson Hodges and his team, and the amazing work that he does for dogs in general, and for the impact that knowing him has had in my life.
If you liked the show, please subscribe. Please leave me a review. It helps so much. I hope you have a great day. And I look forward to the next show.