by Robert Pregulman
January 15, 2012
Bruno, the red Italian Greyhound that escaped from his home in Kirkland earlier this week has been found and is safe at home!
His mom provided me with some of the details of what happened so other people can learn from her experience.
You should note a few things from her account of what happened:
1. When a dog runs away it tends to put as much distance as possible between itself and whatever startled it. This means the area you’ll need to search will be larger than you anticipate. Bruno was about a mile away from his house about 30 minutes after his escape, and by that night he was 2 miles away.
2. You can find many resources online to help you with your search. Many people have found posting lost dog notices on Craigslist is helpful. Findtoto.com alerts people in targeted areas about your dog and gives them a number to call if they see it.
And the website for Federal Way-based Missing Pet Partnership has tons of helpful information that can significantly increase the chances that you find your pet.
3. If you run up to a lost dog, even if it’s yours, it will most likely run away. The best thing to do is kneel down, hold out some food, and wait for it to come to you.
Here’s the account of how Bruno’s mom found him:
Bruno was accidentally let out of my house on Monday afternoon around 2:30 while we were not home. The search began around 3pm but he had already been seen almost a mile from home at that point based on later calls. Many of us searched the area we thought he would be in almost straight from 3pm to about 7:30.
My husband went back out from about 8-9 and my mom went out from about 10:30 to 12:30am. What is sad is that we were in the wrong spot! He had already made it a couple of miles from home in another neighborhood that we would have never expected.
Multiple people saw him and tried to catch him but he was too fast and scared. Based on other calls, he actually ended up in an entirely different neighborhood that same night. (Monday) (Crossing VERY busy streets in the process.)
Monday night I created an 8 x 11 colored flyer and we reached out to many online organizations to post including things like craigslist and a Pet Amber Alert.
Tuesday am around 4:15 I went out looking again and began hanging flyers all over my neighborhood including vets, major grocery stores in the general Kirkland area, coffee shops, etc. I looked all day as I would receive calls here and there from my flyers.
One supposed sighting in an area I wouldn’t have expected but I thought it was another dog I had seen with a woman earlier. I went home to be with my spouse, children, devastated to not have him back yet. After my kids went to bed I went out again in the neighborhood he was last seen to look and ran into my good friend who was looking. Nothing.
Tuesday night I contacted the Missing Pet Partnership who shared amazing advice for how to find him and what to do when I did.
Wednesday AM I set up a phone service through findtoto.com and within minutes started receiving phone calls. This was very stressful as people were saying they saw him but I was doubtful it was him as it was near a location I would have never thought he would go. (I live in N. Rose Hill, he was in S. Rose Hill, across 85th!) Around 12:30-12:45 I received a few phone calls telling me people saw him and that he had been hit. This was from findtoto.com calls.
I went to a location where two people told me they had just seen him around 1:30. I walked around a bit, spoke to myself a bit softly, asked everyone who I saw if they had seen him, including kids getting out of school at Rose Hill Elementary. I had walked away from a house that I went up to, where someone said they saw him, when kids across the street yelled that they saw him.
I ran over and he did see me but scurried off! They helped me barricade the area a bit as I didn’t want him to take off. I followed the advice from Missing Pet Partnership to be calm, not chase, kneel down, don’t look at him, and offered food (I threw some near him and smaller pieces to get him close.) I also called my other dogs name as they told me that would be familiar and less threatening to him and to not call his name. He slowly got close enough to eat pupperoni from my hand and get my scent and I gently picked him up.
I was so emotional at that moment I think the kids thought I was crazy. I thanked them profusely and anyone else who has called throughout the week. I have also tried to return calls from people and emails letting them know he was found. I am in the process of removing my flyers as well as the advice I saw was to do that if I find him so people can spend their energy looking for other lost animals.
Finally, I do think there is something about thinking/envisioning FINDING the animal vs. that it’s lost. I tried to say out loud and think it in my head over and over, “I will find you, I am looking for you.” I did this a lot even though it wasn’t easy.
Source: http://www.seattledogspot.com/2012/01/15/lost-italian-greyhound-in-kirkland-found/
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