"Nino", Grey/Black Poodle, Oakland

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Total Distance: 17.48 km (10.9 mi)
Total Time: 3:50:59
Moving Time: 2:14:01
Average Pace: 13.21 min/km (21.3 min/mi)
Average Moving Pace: 7.67 min/km (12.3 min/mi)
Min Pace: 0.82 min/km (1.3 min/mi)
Min Elevation: -41 m (-135 ft)
Max Elevation: 0 m (0 ft)
Elevation Gain: 608 m (1994 ft)
Max Grade: 2 %
Min Grade: -3 %
Recorded: Sun Apr 25 10:23:04 PDT 2010

"Sirus", DSH, Black, Oakland - Found!

Sirus is an indoor/outdoor all black, 20 pound DSH. He always had a very consistent schedule and would return everyday at the same time for food when his person returned home. One night he did not come home. There were no sightings of Sirus. He had been missing for several days when I was called.

We did a couple of days of tracking for Sirus. However, I had problems with the GPS tracking, so they do not exist.


Within a couple of blocks, it was obvious that Sirus had been picked up and was being carried. In an isolated area of a school playground near his home, there appeared to be a scuffle with Sirus' scent scattered in a wide area. Then the scent went directly out of the school and headed up the street and, for the next several hours, the track went around to various parts of Oakland, including numerous homeless encampments.


Sirus' person called off the search after a couple of days. I never heard anything more from Sirus' person.


I received a voicemail from him on September 22, 2011 that Sirus had been found the previous May. He had been missing for over 13 months. He was found after his microchip was scanned by a vet. The finder had him for over 4 months, and took him to the vet for a check up and the microchip was found.

"Stella", DSH, Grey, Fairfield

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There was a little problem with the GPS. The track actually started about an hour prior to this start. 


Plus we went to another location to check out a possible sighting. Both dogs indicated that no scent of Stella was in that spot, so we walked back to the house and find Stella's track leading out from there to the surrounding area.


(details of search to follow)

"Moula", Silver British Shorthair, Santa Clara - Found!

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Total Distance: 28.29 km (17.6 mi)
Total Time: 6:13:13
Moving Time: 3:57:42
Average Pace: 13.10 min/km (21.1 min/mi)
Average Moving Pace: 8.40 min/km (13.5 min/mi)
Min Pace: 4.76 min/km (7.7 min/mi)
Min Elevation: -44 m (-145 ft)
Max Elevation: 20 m (66 ft)
Elevation Gain: 1092 m (3584 ft)
Max Grade: 5 %
Min Grade: 0 %
Recorded: Tue Apr 13 09:36:18 PDT 2010


Moula is an indoor only, intact, five year old silver British Shorthair. He is microchipped, but he does not have a collar on. He escaped one evening through the front door. He lives in a large garden style apartment complex. There were no sightings of Moula after he escaped. 


We did find Moula's track leading away from the front door, zig zagging all around the garden area in and out of bushes. After the garden we found Moula's track leading around the block and then exactly back to the garden area. Here the track lead around another part of the garden area and through a gate behind some apartments. 


At this point, it was clear to me and Moula's people with me that Moula had been picked up inside the garden and taken away. The track we found led to a community garden where a neighbor from the complex was known to have a garden. In fact, when we were there, surprisingly, they showed up and attempted to get to one of the sheds in the garden. When they saw us look at them, they quickly walked away. We did not find Moula in that garden, but we did find a track that continued out of the garden and for a few miles in the city. At the end of the track, Moula's person decided to stop the search. 


I got a phone call that evening, a few hours after our search, that, suddenly, Moula was seen running loose back inside the apartment complex. I suggested putting out a trap at their door to try to catch him. 


I call a phone call two days later that Moula was caught inside the trap and quickly brought back inside. 


It was very obvious to everybody that Moula, though he escaped by accident, he was picked up and removed inside the garden shortly after escaping. Moula's people said they do remember their neighbor's across from them out in the garden late that night while they were trying to find Moula. This was the same neighbor who has the community garden, and who we found watching us that day. Moula's people were confident who they thought had stolen him from the garden and was keeping him confined. 

"Bentley", English Bulldog, Saratoga

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(details of search to follow)

"Hercules", DSH, Grey Tabby, San Francisco

Search 1:



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Total Distance: 18.47 km (11.5 mi)
Total Time: 3:26:30
Moving Time: 1:52:02
Average Pace: 11.18 min/km (18.0 min/mi)
Average Moving Pace: 6.07 min/km (9.8 min/mi)
Min Pace: 3.51 min/km (5.6 min/mi)
Min Elevation: -39 m (-127 ft)
Max Elevation: 143 m (468 ft)
Elevation Gain: 1348 m (4421 ft)
Max Grade: 17 %
Min Grade: -45 %
Recorded: Wed Apr 14 08:57:24 PDT 2010


Search 2:



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For the above map, you have to zoom in until the map is seen. The GPS was off for some reason that day. I will do my best here to describe the track. We started by going around the apartment building and then found a track at the corner of Folsom and the post office that led toward the Embarcadero. Then is was similar, but in reverse, to the first track. At the pin that says "Barrier" was in front of a large hotel. The barrier was noted because the track appeared to act like the barrier was not there. The dogs indicated the track went where the barrier was. This means that the person who has Hercules walked there when the barrier was not there. If we could find out when the barrier was not there, we might be able to narrow down the timeframe of this track.




This next track below is a continuation of the above track. The pins are where I was trying to work around the GPS problem. I put pins in my current location along the way. Where the red line is in between the green and red markers are where the GPS finally kicked in. That shows where we stopped and walked back to the apartment building. I emailed and talked to Karen along the way.

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The next track is where we started again from the apartment building. This should be self explanatory with the markers.



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Total Distance: 6.68 km (4.1 mi)
Total Time: 53:43
Moving Time: 29:19
Average Pace: 7.92 min/km (12.7 min/mi)
Average Moving Pace: 4.39 min/km (7.1 min/mi)
Min Pace: 1.75 min/km (2.8 min/mi)
Min Elevation: -46 m (-150 ft)
Max Elevation: 201 m (659 ft)
Elevation Gain: 750 m (2461 ft)
Max Grade: 70 %
Min Grade: -58 %
Recorded: Mon Apr 19 14:36:43 PDT 2010




Search 3:





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The GPS was fixed by this track. This track, which was done on a Saturday with a lot of pedestrian traffic on the Embarcadero. There are very similar patterns to the first two tracks. There are tracks on Folsom and the Embarcadero and Market and streets like Bush and Geary that parallel Market. We are going to work on setting a trap on the grounds of the apartment building in the trash area.




Total Distance: 9.37 km (5.8 mi)
Total Time: 1:59:33
Moving Time: 55:23
Average Pace: 12.75 min/km (20.5 min/mi)
Average Moving Pace: 5.91 min/km (9.5 min/mi)
Min Pace: 2.90 min/km (4.7 min/mi)
Min Elevation: -49 m (-160 ft)
Max Elevation: 275 m (901 ft)
Elevation Gain: 997 m (3271 ft)
Max Grade: 65 %
Min Grade: -51 %
Recorded: Sat Apr 24 10:00:34 PDT 2010

"Ellie", Bassett Hound, Near Chicago, IL - Found!

This story was told to me by Ellie's person through a national Lost Pet Yahoo group. It is a great example of how not to give up when looking for your pet. 

(Ellie's person's comment about trying to find her)

This is Ellie's story.

Just two hours before I was to pick her up at the vet clinic, Eleanor, my foster basset,  had backed out from her slip lead.   I called my rescue friends who were instrumental in helping me capture my own shy beagle two months before who had also escaped from another vet clinic.  We first contacted Find Toto.com.  Volunteers from Basset Buddies and BREW Midwest converged on the clinic.  We mapped out areas to search and post flyers.  She was being sighted that day but would not come up to any of us.   One volunteer was designated to post sightings so we could establish a routine for her during this time.  We also had volunteers who manned posts at night at different sections of the town to continue to sight her.  After a week, we moved her feeding station and trap to an area that she had been frequenting.  It took us  29 days and she finally took the trap.  We had team out from Boston on hold who was going to fly in to use a drop net because she was not taking the trap.  Every night we had someone who stayed in their car to watch the trap.  We hooked up a soft flood light to shine on the trap so we could see her.  Afterwards the county newspaper wrote an article about on the community came together to help us find Ellie.  We had a person who took his plane out to search for her.  Everyone knew about Ellie.  It was unbelievable.  As I tell other people who are looking for their dogs, the more people who know about your lost dog by using Find Toto, posting flyers, placing posters on neon colored boards at intersections, going to the McDonalds drive thru-handling out flyer at lunch/dinner time, the more chances for sightings.

On a side note - the first flyer I handed out to a teenager when my beagle went missing from the other vet clinic, was our first sighting for my beagle that afternoon.  We were able to encircle him with a group of volunteers and another beagle.  My beagle then went up to the other beagle and laid down.

Don't give up!  Don't be afraid to ask for help!!!

"Anna", Collie, Los Gatos - Found!

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Total Distance: 1096.94 km (681.6 mi)
Total Time: 5:08:06
Moving Time: 2:20:01
Average Pace: 0.28 min/km (0.5 min/mi)
Average Moving Pace: 0.13 min/km (0.2 min/mi)
Min Pace: 0.12 min/km (0.2 min/mi)
Min Elevation: 218 m (717 ft)
Max Elevation: 3630 m (11909 ft)
Elevation Gain: 4785 m (15700 ft)
Max Grade: 69 %
Min Grade: -51 %
Recorded: Wed Apr 07 14:23:23 PDT 2010

Testimonial to Lostapet.org:


We found my little rough collie Anna yesterday, Day 6, with the superb professional help of Jackie Phillips and her tracking team Dot and Dino (The Social Pet, www.thesocialpet.com) I located Jackie through Lostapet's website. Anna slipped her collar while being walked on Summit Road in Los Gatos. For those of us in the San Francisco Bay Area, Summit Road is the extension of Skyline Boulevard running along the top ridge of the San Mateo-Santa Cruz Mountain Range. Right. Mountains, redwoods, ravines and rushing brooks after the major rainfall last weekend. You're lucky if you get a deer track, let alone a logging road or a paved road. Jackie and her team picked up Anna's scent from the last sighting, then four days old. We walked, hiked and stayed focused for six hours until nightfall. The next morning we were geared up for another full day of clambering over old logs, sliding on our rear ends over ferns - when I got a call. A neighbor had spotted Anna in his neighborhood, maybe a hundred yards from where we had started. I threw on my flipflops, put the morning toast into the car, and drove the 45 minutes to the spot. Drove....slowly....hollering...whistling...withe windows rolled down, and the smell of Anna's favorite buttered toast wafting through the neighborhood. Not every animal will recognize its owner after being lost, frightened and clearly traumatized for six days in storms, heavily travelled roads, no food and strangers. I knew that Jackie, Dot and Dino were on their way, just in case Anna would be too freaked out to come to me. Now try to imagine how I felt when I saw my little collie running after the car. And imagine me and Anna, sitting in the back of the Prius, snuggling and crying together. Many lessons learned. Just walking around with Jackie probably gave Anna the scent that I was nearby. My previous walks in the neighborhood may have contributed to Anna staying relatively nearby, or at least returning to the scene of the original squirrel chase. Jackie's focus and professionalism, and the team's superb capabilities, were simply outstanding. For those of you living through the strange agony of a lost pet, if you are living in the San Francisco Bay Area, you will get hope and real help when you call Jackie at The Social Pet. 

Search Details:

Anna is a four year old Sable and White Collie. She was not wearing her collar, but she is mirochipped. Anna was being boarded at Summit Vet at the far south end of Los Gatos on Summit Blvd. While taken out for a walk, she slipped out of her lead and took off across the highway. There were sightings of her for the next couple of days. We started our search from the last sighting on Saturday afternoon. We followed her track for miles in all directions that day. At the end of the day, it was getting dark and everybody was tired, we decided to call it for that day and restart the next morning.

On my drive back down to the area (about one and a half hours) I received a phone message that Anna had been found early that morning around 7 AM. See the above letter from Anna's person about the details on how she was found.

This was part of the search to where we tracked Anna. 

Dino, Dot and myself taking a break while looking for Anna. 

"Wylie", Siamese, San Rafael - Found!

Wylie is a male Siamese who was recently adopted from a local shelter. After spending one night alone in an unused bedroom, Wylie escaped through a window in that same room. He is microchipped, but is not wearing a collar. I came out two days after he escaped. 

We followed Wylie around the neighborhood and to a local dump, back to the neighborhood and around and around and eventually back to the area of the house. 

A few days later I received a voicemail that Wylie was seen in the area of his home, and they were attempting to catch him with traps.

I did not find out that Wylie was captured pretty soon after that voicemail until almost a year later. I never got a note from Wylie's person, but heard about it another way. 

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Total Distance: 11.84 km (7.4 mi)
Total Time: 3:04:15
Moving Time: 1:55:03
Average Pace: 15.43 min/km (24.8 min/mi)
Average Moving Pace: 9.71 min/km (15.6 min/mi)
Min Pace: 7.23 min/km (11.6 min/mi)
Min Elevation: -48 m (-157 ft)
Max Elevation: 30 m (97 ft)
Elevation Gain: 463 m (1520 ft)
Max Grade: 0 %
Min Grade: 0 %
Recorded: Tue Apr 06 14:54:12 PDT 2010

"Heather", Grey/White DLH, San Jose - Found!

Date: Tue, May 4, 2010 1:24 PM
Subject: HEATHER
To: "Jackie Phillips" <jackie@thesocialpet.com>

Hi Jackie-

I wanted to let you know that yesterday afternoon, Heather came home.  She looked pretty bad.  I took her to her Vet and seems to be doing okay today.  She was very skinny and very dehydrated.  I am shocked that she made it home in her condition.  She definitely used up a few of her lives.

I actually had a call from someone on Los Gatos Creek trail about 10 days ago claiming to have seen her before she even saw one of my flyers.  Saw her after seeing my poster and then made the connection that this was possibly her.  We pinpointed where she thought she saw her and went looking but did not see her.  So thank you for your assistance and suggestions on what do.  I learned alot and never gave up hope.  


Linda
San Jose"


Search Details:
Heather is an outdoor, eleven year old grey/white tabby DLH. She is not wearing a collar and does not have a microchip. She did not return home one morning as usual. Heather is a neighbor to "Molly" who disappeared in November 2009. Molly's person referred Heather's person to me to help them. 


I bring this up because Heather's disappearance was practically identical to Molly's. Heather was out at night, and was not known to leave her immediate limited court street. We found Heather's scent down the street to where the gate to the elementary school was locked. It looked like Heather went into the school and then came back out. From there the scent appeared to go around and around the end of the street and then went down the street and made the right out to the main street. Heather also disappeared the night that the trash cans are put out, just like Molly. 


From out at the main street, Heather's scent went down the street for many blocks, and then crossed into a park, through some neighborhoods and then out to the path leading up and down the extensive creek system known as Los Gatos Creek Trail. This trail leads for miles up and down through San Jose, Campbell, and Los Gatos. The track led in and out of homeless camps and then all the way down the trail to Campbell to the Campbell Park and then back to the Los Gatos Creek Trails.


To my recollection of Molly's track, Heather's track was identical, which told me that the same transient person who found Molly, also found Heather and transported her away. Like Molly, it appears she got away from this person and made the long trip back home. 

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Total Distance: 12.74 km (7.9 mi)
Total Time: 3:10:05
Moving Time: 1:57:54
Average Pace: 14.92 min/km (24.0 min/mi)
Average Moving Pace: 9.26 min/km (14.9 min/mi)
Min Pace: 5.13 min/km (8.3 min/mi)
Min Elevation: -13 m (-42 ft)
Max Elevation: 40 m (131 ft)
Elevation Gain: 498 m (1633 ft)
Max Grade: 0 %
Min Grade: 0 %
Recorded: Mon Apr 05 14:43:22 PDT 201