For a pet owner, few moments are as bad as coming home to find your pet missing. In metro Denver, those pet owners have plenty to fear. With smaller pets, coyotes are always a concern. And with bigger ones, pet owners can’t help but worry about cars.
Still, the worst part is the unknown. Where is the little pooch? Is that kitty trying to find her way home? Did someone snatch them?
All of that leaves pet owners scrambling for answers, and often, they’re willing to go to extremes to find their lost loved one. When pet owners have tried everything they can think of — calling local shelters, hanging posters and putting ads online — they reach a point where there’s no more they can do on their own.
That’s where the pros come in.
For a some
times hefty fee — just a phone consultation can run $175 — the professional pet detectives will scour your neighborhood for your lost pet, logging the kind of hours that pet owners simply can’t put in even if they wanted to.
Landa Coldiron has been running a pet detective agency in Southern California for almost a decade. With the help of two specially trained bloodhounds — Glory and Diana — and a Jack Russell Terrier named Apache trained in blood and remains detection, she helps pet owners find their lost animals.
The searches often take her far from her home outside Los Angeles, in some cases, distraught pet owners are willing to go to great financial lengths to bring their loved one home.
“Some people have unlimited funds,” she says.
Coldiron didn’t want to disclose her success rate, but she said it is always highest among clients who continue the search using her techniques once her work has run its course. That means continued, targeted searching in places Coldiron says are likely hiding spots for your pet.
In today’s socially networked world, others in the pet-search business are relying on the Web to track down lost animals.
Craig Eakle of Parker launched straypet.net in 2012 after his Boston terrier, Dewey, went missing. For a fee, the site will post notices about missing dogs or cats to a variety of online message boards and Facebook pages, including those of local veterinarians and shelters.
Eakle says the process provides some peace of mind for pet owners who have run out of ideas for tracking down their lost pets. When he lost Dewey a few years ago, Eakle said he wasn’t sure where to turn, or what agencies to call to try to find the dog.
“I would have gladly paid a few dollars to get the word out,” he says.
Sometimes, it’s just too late for a detective or any other search to be effective; pets have already been hit by a car or attacked by a predator. Those cases are gut-wrenching. “But it is closure,” says Landa.
Just like searches for missing people, those moments when Coldiron finds her subject alive and well after several days away from home are pretty rare, but they do happen.
Last year, Coldiron and her dogs found a Pekingese named Goldie that had been missing for nine days and returned the pooch to its 90-year-old owners.
Coldiron says people are willing to try just about anything when it comes to a lost pet. And that makes sense considering the bond many pet owners have with their dogs or cats.
“People do consider them family,” she says. “And they want to try everything possible.”