What to Do if Your Dog is LostSome times we dogs wander off from home and get lost. Its scary for us if we just cant find our way back. We know you are looking for us but we cant tell people where we live. The best thing is if we are always wearing a tag with our name and address on it. If we dont have that, a little thing called a microchip helps too. It doesnt hurt to get it put inside you and if the nice lady or man with the truck picks us up, they can use a thing called a scanner to see who we are and how to find our moms and dads. We dont mean to make you scared but most moms and dads get real worried if they cant find their dogs and run all over the place looking for us. There are things moms and dads can do to find us. One of my cyber friends was lost for 4 hours and a nice lady on the list my mom is on told her mom how to search for her. This lady said my mom could put that here. So make sure your mom or dad reads it just in case!! If these dont work, tell your mom or dad to call the Rescue people (mine would be the German Shepherd Dog Rescue) 'cause someone might have sent us to them if we are gone too long. They should call the Animal Shelter too, for we might be there. Please dont let us stay there too long for we'll get homesick and lonely without you. Better still, make sure our gates are always closed and dogfaces - dont wander away from home - not everyone likes dogs!!
Search Tips
Within the specified radius, are there any places you know of that would be *especially* dog-attractive? Farms? Garbage dump? Schools? Parks? Check these places, and take an off-the-cuff flyer with you--don't waste time making it look professional, all it needs to do is give a basic description of the dog, whether she's approachable or not (important!), and all phone numbers where someone who can fetch her can be reached (enlist friends/neighbors/etc, just in case you're not near a phone) If she's not in any of these places, leave the flyer at the sites, in case she shows up after you've left. Also leave at such places: some food & water, and soiled item of your clothing (T-shirt, etc.) If she does show up at that place, you're better off if she hangs around there thinking you'll be back, than if she just keeps wandering. Work the radius area from the outermost edges inward, preferably in as circular a fashion as possible. When calling her, don't leave the area too quickly--allow her sufficient time to respond if she's a fair distance away from where you happen to be standing. Keep looking for as long as possible; press every person that you know, or even think your dog will come to, into service, too, so you can cover more ground at the same time. Hopefully, all of this will be file-info only, because you'll already have her back by the time you see this...but just in case, this is what has worked for me, and what patterns seemed to exist, when I was dealing with Siberians and cross-bred sled dogs that arrived with bad habits of breaking out of kennel runs and taking off...
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