Kick is a one year old DSH white with tabby patches. She is wearing a collar with a bell and an ID tag and she is microchipped. She was last seen on Labor Day, September 6. There were a couple of possible sightings of Kick, one as current as last Friday morning on the deck inside a yard. We went to the spot and Kick's scent was there and we followed the track. That spot was several blocks away in an area that Kick's person said she never posted flyers because she did not think that Kick could get that far in three weeks.
Kick's person was one of the top five most difficult clients I have had. The day before the search I had an extensive one hour phone conversation with her as she asked me all kinds of questions about that possibility and that option. She said, "I just want to know if Kick's scent is at these two sightings." When other people have said that it has meant that they don't believe that their pet is there since they don't believe their pet would travel that far. She asked to start at a sighting that was down at the end of her block but over a week before this past sighting. I said that it would make more sense to start at the most current one.
I explained on the phone about the fees and again I explained them in person prior to leaving.
I was 20 minutes late to the meeting because I got lost in the thick fog covered hills at 7 AM. The street signs are mostly worn with the lettering off, if there is a street sign at all. I eventually made it there with the combination of GPS and my printed map.
She was already in a bad mood because she had locked herself out of the house prior to me getting there.
I was getting the dogs ready when she insisting on sticking her head inside the side door and the dogs started to bark. I asked her to step out of their view and she asked me to get the dogs quiet since she felt her neighbors would complain.
I made several suggestions to improve her flyer which had a very small picture of Kick in a lower corner and the rest of the flyer was all text. She said her flyer was fine and she was asking me to hurry to get the search on its way, "because she just wanted to check the scent in the area". I tried to review the Finding Lost Pet Checklist, but she said she had already read it and wanted to get moving.
When I found Kick's scent in the yard of the latest siting, I could tell that Kick's person did not believe that her scent could be there. She said that she never knew of a cat that would walk on the sidewalk and in the street, where we were following a lot of Kick's scent. Then the track went into a smallish regional park and it went around and around. While we were in the park, she asked, "Jackie, do you think this is all a waste of time?" I asked her to clarify her thoughts, and she asked if I thought the dogs were on the correct trail. I said "yes, of course."
From here the track went down a street outside of the park past a lot of very loud road construction, and then jutted back into the park. She said that she didn't think that Kick would be here with all that loud noise. I reminded her that we were following a track that was a week old. From here I thought that she might really think we might come upon her cat at this point, even though the cat had been missing for three weeks, which I never once gave her the idea we would do that. In our conversation yesterday, she never gave the indication that she thought we could come upon her cat after being missing for three weeks, and only being on the search for less than an hour.
We followed the track down the street and then it made a right turn down another street. At this point, I thought that maybe Kick had been picked up and was being carried. I did not have a chance to tell her since she was a ways back.
At the next stop, as we approached an intersection, she asked me to stop and asked me if I thought we were still following Kick's track. I said "yes" and that I thought she might have been picked up. She asked me how we could track Kick's scent if she was picked up, and I said very easily, we do it all the time. At this point, she blew up at me. She insisted that everything I was doing was a "farce" in her own words and that I was "a kook" and "a fraud." She insisted her cat would never come this far and would never tolerate being carried. At this point, she turned on her heels and started walking back home. We had only been tracking her cat for an hour.
Luckily I had my GPS with me and was able to find my own way back to her home because she totally ditched me. Actually, I made it back before she did because she took the track we did to follow the cat and I took another suggested by GPS.
I started to put the dogs back inside my car and she stuck her head in, insisting that I tell her how much she owed me since she was late for work. At this point, the dogs started to bark and I asked her to step back so they couldn't see her. She said that my dogs were uncontrollable and that I was supposed to be a better trainer, and that their barking proved that the were not following her cat since, to her, it seemed like my dogs were not trained.
I told her the amount and she said that I never told her about the mileage being included and she called me a "farce" again. I asked her for the safety vest, and she went to her car and walked back to me, throwing it at me and calling me a "farce." I said that it appears she does not believe her cat would travel or be carried that far, and that I had seen that response before. On the subject line of the check she wrote "total farce."
View Kick in a larger map
Total Distance: 5.14 km (3.2 mi)
Total Time: 1:03:08
Moving Time: 45:25
Average Pace: 12.28 min/km (19.8 min/mi)
Average Moving Pace: 8.83 min/km (14.2 min/mi)
Min Pace: 6.54 min/km (10.5 min/mi)
Min Elevation: 5 m (17 ft)
Max Elevation: 113 m (371 ft)
Elevation Gain: 165 m (541 ft)
Max Grade: 0 %
Min Grade: 0 %
Recorded: Thu Sep 30 08:00:59 PDT 2010
No comments:
Post a Comment