Oban, whippet/shepherd mix

Dogged Pursuits: Tails from a Dog Rescuer
By Jim Branson for Seattle DogSpot
April 2, 2013

Dogged Pursuits is a new feature on Seattle DogSpot. Each week, Jim Branson from Three Retrievers Lost Pet Rescue will write a post about a search he conducted for a lost pet in the Puget Sound region with his dogs Kelsy, Porter, and Komu.

Oban before he went missing

I hope Jim's stories not only entertain you but also provide insight into the most effective ways for searching for/finding a lost pet.


Jim's first post is about the search for Oban, a dog he found over the weekend. Oban was lost for almost 2 months after escaping from a parked car in Bellevue on February 2.

We're excited about this new feature - please let us know of you like it.

Oban, a whippet-shepherd mix, went missing on February 2nd. He was playing, "You can't catch me," with his owner when he was struck by a car and ran off into the fog. Sporadic reports of Oban came in over the next two months.

When reports came in that he was seen very close to the accident site, I set up an "Intersection Alert" where several volunteers held up large neon posters about Oban's plight.

We received at least eight tips that afternoon. He had been seen ten blocks away, but he was seen most recently very near the intersection - 150th Ave SE and SE 37th Street - where the volunteers were standing.

Just before dark, someone pulled over and said they had just seen him on the off ramp from eastbound I-90 to 150th Ave SE. We went to check it out, but Oban slipped back into the woods before we could spot him.

A narrow strip of trees and brush grows between the off ramp and a tall retaining wall. Oban couldn't go south from there, and going east, west, or north would just put him on the freeway. I set up a humane trap in the woods at the end of the off ramp, but Oban didn't go in it the first day.

Many volunteers checked the trap every few hours, just in case any animal was trapped.

The next day, I moved the trap to a quieter area and someone put a couple of articles of clothing (belonging to Oban's owner, who was out of town) into the trap. They placed his favorite bed beside the trap.

As I was looking around the area to see how he might be getting around, I received a call that he had just been seen again poking his head out of the woods beside the off ramp. Knowing exactly where he was at that moment, I called for volunteers to help me keep an eye on the area and make sure he didn't leave.

We often use a "Magnet Dog" to lure a skittish dog to safety. My little dog, Fozzie, works sometimes. In this case, because Oban was so skittish and traumatized from the accident, I contacted his owner and learned of a dog named Sonia that Oban likes.

Kendra brought Sonia to the off ramp for the luring attempt. I told Kendra not to make eye contact with Oban or call his name, to focus her attention on Sonia and ignore Oban while giving Sonia treats. I also told Kendra that it would be better to not catch Oban today than to lunge for him and risk scaring him away to a new location.

Kendra walked Sonia down the shoulder of the road as cars whizzed by at 60 MPH. Kendra and Sonia made one pass back and forth along the strip of woods, one thousand feet down and one thousand feet back.

Nothing.

Kendra took Sonia for a second pass, and Oban popped out of the woods to see his friend and get some treats. He allowed Kendra to snap a leash on his collar with no trouble. Kendra rushed him to the nearby emergency vet, where Oban is staying overnight. He was very thin.

Oban when he was found after 2 months

When I called Oban's owner to tell her he was safe she screamed into the phone.

He needs more evaluation, but at this point it appears he will make a full recovery after being lost for two months. Many volunteers helped bring Oban to safety, including Irene, Krystina, Jacintha, Dina, Dori, Shawna, Julie, Lara, Sheri, Sam, Ilse, Kendra, Stephan, and Sonia the Vizsla.

Jim Branson is a certified Missing Animal Response Technician with four years of experience finding lost cats and dogs for Missing Pet Partnership.

Source: http://www.seattledogspot.com/blog/dog-blog/post/dogged-pursuits

Chispita, chihuahua

Woman Who Stood On Corner In Bikini Reunited With Missing Dog
Arlene Corona Stood On La Jolla Street Corner In A Bikini To Find Missing Chihuahua Chispita
December 1, 2011

SAN DIEGO -- A local woman who stood at a La Jolla street corner in a bikini in an effort to bring attention to her missing dog was reunited with the Chihuahua on Tuesday.

Inside Edition was there when Arlene Corona was reunited with her Chihuahua, Chispita.
"Those were the worst two weeks of my life," Corona told 10News.

Corona said she had been sick with guilt since the moment she let Chispita slip away after taking the dog outside to relieve itself on the Nov. 16. She said she believes Chispita may have been taken in by someone in her neighborhood.

"That's when I started knocking door-to-door," Corona explained. "I did the pet Amber Alert and then I even called in a pet psychic, and she couldn't help me but all she could say was, 'Stay positive, a girl has her, appeal to her emotions.'"

For six days last week, Corona donned high heels and a bikini at the corner of La Jolla Village Drive and Genesee Avenue, waving signs and hoping someone would recognize and return her dog.

"I was just like it's a win-win situation because the girl would probably see me on her way to wherever she was going," Corona said. "And then I'll get news coverage to raise awareness."

Corona's stunt received national attention and it just might have worked.

Corona told 10News a school nurse had the dog.

"Students were telling her, 'That girl is still outside, you need to bring the dog back' because everybody knew she had her because she was taking her to school."

Then, a student's mom called Corona's mom, which lead to the reunion.

Corona said she didn't realize how dangerous her bold attempt might be.

"This one guy in particular just wouldn't leave me alone and he kept trying to meet with me," Corona said.

According to Corona, the man told her she had to let him perform sexual acts on her if she wanted to see her dog again.

"He was just saying disgusting things and then sent me a picture of his private parts," Corona said.

She cut off communication immediately, only to start receiving text messages from another number, which said her dog was in danger, so she should rush over.

"He was saying that my dog was getting beat, and he was sure it was my dog. I called back and it was the same voicemail from the first guy that was harassing me," said Corona.

Since the man did not break any laws, authorities can't arrest him and she can't file a restraining order since she doesn't know who it is.

Despite the dangers, Corona she said it was worth it to get her best friend back in her arms.

"It's amazing to have her back. I just will never let this happen again," Corona told 10News.

She hopes her dog's new microchip is one more way to be sure of it.

Source: http://www.10news.com/news/29898530/detail.html

Pepper, poodle

Pepper the Poodle
Told by Kat Albrecht to HomeAgain

I’m skeptical whenever I hear someone say that their dog was stolen. Although some dogs are occasionally stolen for profit, my research has shown that the majority of supposed “theft” cases are actually incidents where a dog has strayed from home and was picked up by someone who decided to keep the dog. Unfortunately, in the following case, the owner’s suspicion of theft was correct.

Pepper was a ten-year-old tiny black teacup Poodle who lived with her human, Martha, in a posh apartment in a very nice area of town. Unbeknownst to Martha, several apartments had been burglarized in her neighborhood over the past month. Of course, Martha didn’t think twice about leaving Pepper alone in her apartment while she ran several errands.

When Martha returned to her apartment one day, she immediately knew something was wrong. She was normally greeted by a yapping, wiggling ball of fur – but this day, there was silence. As soon as she entered the apartment Martha’s worst fears were confirmed –items that were once neatly in their place were strewn around the apartment floor. Drawers were open, seat cushions were out of place, and CDs littered the floor by her bookshelf. Martha yelled for Pepper but there was no response. She quickly called the police and waited until they arrived to search the apartment. Pepper was gone.

The point of entry and exit were the same – the window in Martha’s bedroom. The window was too high for Pepper to climb out of on her own. Pepper had been stolen.

By the time that Martha learned about our services, Pepper has been missing for two days. Martha had done the usual posting of flyers in the neighborhood, searching the shelters, and placing a classified ad in the paper. One mistake that Martha made, which I quickly corrected, was to change her flyers and posters so that they read “REWARD LOST DOG” instead of “STOLEN DOG.” The worst thing we could have done was to scare off any potential witnesses by letting them know the dog was stolen. Very few people are willing to be a snitch, but many are willing to be a hero by helping reunite a lost dog with his family. But as day two ticked by without any leads, we decided it was time to pull out the big guns – an intersection alert.

An intersection alert is when four to six volunteers stand on the corner of a major intersection near where the pet was lost (or stolen) and hold up giant florescent “REWARD LOST DOG” posters. Similar in concept to companies that pay people to stand on corners holding marketing signs, intersection alerts are designed to capture attention and get information out to the community that a dog is missing.

We started our intersection alert the following morning at 6:30 a.m. in order to capture the traffic for the morning commute. Our florescent orange posters read, “REWARD LOST TINY BLACK POODLE” and within twenty minutes we had our first lead! A gentleman in a white pickup truck pulled over and told me that his nextdoor neighbor, a woman in her early twenties, had a new small black Poodle. The description seemed to match, even down to the blue bows in Pepper’s poofy ears. I obtained the address, thanked him profusely for the tip, and never let on that Pepper was stolen. I didn’t call Martha just yet. And I didn’t go to the house myself to confront the woman. This was a felony investigation and the last thing the police needed was for us to interfere. So, I called the police and gave the information to the officer when he arrived.

Within twenty minutes, Martha was at the woman’s house and identified Pepper. The woman at the house claimed that Pepper was her family’s dog that she had owned for years. But Martha had told the police officer beforehand about a tiny patch of white fur on Pepper’s left hind foot and the royal blue bows in his ears. His markings matched and Pepper was recovered. Of course, there would have been no question of identity that it was Pepper if he had been microchipped. Martha was very lucky, because if Pepper was generic-looking there would have been no proof that Pepper was her dog and she probably would not have left with the Poodle in her arms.

It was exciting to see a happy ending to a case where there seemed to be no hope. But by changing one word in our message – from “stolen” to “lost” – and by using a bold method to get our message out to the community, Pepper was home again, where he belonged.

Source: http://fpblogengine.com/PetRescuerStories.ashx?blogid=2&postid=36

Tabu, a brown mixed breed dog

Recently I snagged the corrugated cardboard "box" that a white board had arrived in, at my office, and I thought it would be good to use to make a large LOST DOG sign. And I'm involved in a lost dog search for which it might be a good resource for spreading the word effectively. I wanted to describe, and show a picture of, an intersection alert to the dog's owner. And what do you know, Kat Albrecht, founder of the Missing Pet Partnership had JUST blogged about a highly successful intersection alert she'd conducted. Enjoy the story.


Rejoice With Those Who Rejoice (Tabu's Story)
December 2009

THIS is how to recover a lost dog. We call it an ”Intersection Alert” or a ”Lost Dog Protest” and it grabs the attention of people. Missing Pet Partnership (MPP) has had great success with this recovery technique, including the rapid (15 minute) recovery of a lost Chihuahua named Sukhi at the 4th of July (see The Seattle Times story). We use giant, florescent LOST DOG posters and volunteers wearing bright green LOST PET RESCUE vests who “market” a lost dog at a major intersection in the immediate area where the dog vanished.

Volunteers Conduct Intersection Alert

Intersection alerts are most effective when conducted at major intersections with 6 to 8 volunteers during commute hours. They are highly successful on cases of lost purebred dogs that are easy to describe in a few words like “YELLOW LAB” or ”WHITE POODLE, BLUE COLLAR.” If a passersby can read a few words and visualize what the missing dog looks like, then we can get our message out to hundreds of people in a matter of hours. Well, we had none of those factors working in our favor last week when we tried to recover a mixed breed dog on the run for 9 days in her Seattle neighborhood.

“Tabu” was a 14-year-old hard-to-describe brown mixed breed dog with ears that were sometimes pointy, sometimes floppy. How do you put THAT description into five words? And we only had three volunteers: myself, Jim Branson, and Sam Franklin. Sam was there because she knew exactly what it was like to have lost a dog. Sam’s Bassett Hound, Daisy, was lost for 3 months until MPP was able to help her humanely trap the skittish dog (see Sam’s testimonial here). So it was three MPP volunteers plus Mike, Tabu’s owner. And it was noon on Saturday, not exactly rush hour traffic. We each set up at a corner and started twirling our signs.

Actually, we didn’t move the signs around like real sign twirlers do. We made it easy for drivers to read our message as they pulled up to the 4-way stop sign. We held a stack of fliers with a color photo of Tabu that included Mike and Rohini’s cell phone numbers. I found that if I held the flyer out and waved it as driver’s pulled up to the stop sign, many would roll down their passenger window so I could quickly hand it to them.

We probably handed out 500 fliers during the next few hours. At one point, I was the only one left on the corner because Sam had left for work, Mike had headed off to check on what turned out to be a false sighting, and Jim had headed off in another direction on another false sighting. I had a line of drivers who seemed pissed that I was distracting or maybe delaying them from their last minute Christmas shopping. My feet were killing me. Then it started to rain. It was at that point that discouragement hit. I began to question just why I was standing alone in the rain on a street corner. Thankfully, minutes later everything changed. A man who had one of the flyers with him called Mike. Tabu was in his front yard, laying by his porch. Mike rushed off and returned to our intersection just fifteen minutes later – with Tabu in his car!

We were all elated! After high-fiving Jim, we both followed Mike back to his house. I was there when he let Tabu inside where she drank water and ate some food. I snapped a picture as she dropped to the ground, grunted, and rolled back and forth with pleasure on a small rug on the wooden floor. Mike said Tabu rolled like that with anything that had their scent on it. I waited until Rohini got home because I wanted to see her joy. She had been torn apart with Tabu’s disappearance. Tabu had been a part of her life since she was a puppy. As Rohini gave me a big hug and thanked me, it reminded me of my signature verse. Back in 1997 when I first made the decision to help people search for their lost pets, I came across a Bible verse that confirmed that pet detective work was my calling. The verse is Romans 12:15 which says, ”Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.”

After things settled down, I asked Mike and Rohini to let me take a reunion picture of them with Tabu. The smile on Rohini’s face says it all - this family was, once again, complete. It was a good day to rejoice!

Source: http://katalbrecht.com/blog/?p=208