Pet Detectives Exist

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Pet Detectives Exist

This past week, I listened to a story on NPR about a former K9 Police Officer who is now a bona fide Pet Detective, and she’s training others to take up the mantle across the country. I was so delighted by the story, I just had to summarize some of the salient facts Kathy Albrecht shared in her interview. As a person who definitely lost her shit when Nico went missing, I loved knowing that there are professionals who can help, in addition to certain tips for pet owners who have a lost pet. Here’s what I learned:

Albrecht has a book out, probably worth checking out, titled The Lost Pet Chronicles: Adventures of a K-9 Cop Turned Pet Detective.Yes, Kathy Albrecht is a bona-fide Pet Detective. This amazing woman has found an estimated 1,800 lost pets, and not only dogs and cats, but snakes, ferrets, turtles, iguanas, and horses. It all started when she lost her K9 bloodhound, AJ, who was trained to find humans. She got it in her head that dogs could also be used to find other dogs. A friend’s golden retriever found the errant AJ in twenty minutes!Search and rescue dogs are trained to ignore animal scents to focus on humans. Fortunately, retraining dogs to find animal scents wasn’t all that difficult. In fact, her bloodhounds absolutely loved their new job, giving them the permission to track what they really wanted to track.Picking the right dog for the job is critical. A dog who hates cats would not make a good tracker for missing kitties. Her search dogs are put through a testing and evaluation process. Dogs used to find cats have to want to be with a cat, rather than a dog who might harm or chase cats. Dogs who are best at finding missing dogs are ones that ought to have the “dog park dog” mentality (“dogs that want nothing more than to play with another dog”).Bloodhounds are especially good at tracking lost pets because they can track a smell that is several days old. The jowls cause them to slobber, and that moisture collects the scent. In addition, their long, dangly ears agitate the older scent particles on the ground. In a court of law, a bloodhound’s “testimony” is accepted.Another dog that Albrecht uses is a Weimaraner, which tracks scent through the air versus focusing on the ground, which can be particularly effective with cats. Although she noted that any dog could be trained in search and rescue as long as they had the right disposition. Goddess bless Albrecht for selecting dogs from animal shelters to train.Different lost pets require different strategies. The key is to understand the behavior of different animals, which is a science, to be sure. Cats tend to stay close to home because they are territorial. When they become stressed or frightened, they will hide and remain silent. The first task is to locate the hidden cat and then set up a humane trap. Dogs travel distances because they move at rapid speeds, and those distances vary greatly. More skittish dogs may travel further.While posters for lost pets can be helpful, they’re most effective for missing dogs because dogs travel greater distances. Thus, pet owners with lost dogs should follow the “five, five, fifty-five” rule. Five seconds means the poster has to be immediately eye-catching. Five words means the core message should be five words or less. And fifty-five means the poster needs to contain large, clear text and a high-contrast design to ensure readability at a distance (when traveling on a 55mph road).

The Fresh Air podcast is definitely worth a listen if so inclined, here’s the link: https://www.npr.org/2004/05/24/1908094/pet-detective-kathy-albrecht I thought I had exhausted my creative brain with ideas for new books, and then I heard this podcast. Wouldn’t it be great to have a love story that starts with a distraught pet owner who decides to hire a pet detective against the advice of family and friends who discourage what they believe is a scam? Speaking of lost kitties, don’t forget to get my latest release, The Kitten Trap. Maybe if I’d known about pet detectives, I would have written that character into the story when Carmen and Mac’s mischievous kitties went missing! Reminder: Today is the last day to pick up this book, as well as most of my other books, for 25% off.

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