Missing dogs focus of online search network
Sisters who operate website share passion for animals
By GEOFF BIRD
Mon, Apr 11 – 4:54 AM
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*When Duke went missing last week, a team of investigators quickly mobilized to find the 40-kilogram boxer.
Shortly after he posted his dog’s information on Kijiji, Duke’s owner Tyler Naugler of Spryfield got a call from Anne Morrison of the Nova Scotia Lost Dog Network saying she was on the case.
“She was absolutely unbelievable,” Naugler said.
The network, launched with a website in January, has quickly grown into a popular resource for dog owners whose pets go missing, with around five new posts every day.
Morrison gave Naugler a template for a lost dog poster and told him what steps to take to find his missing dog.
He made calls to a local shelter and filled out posters with Duke’s photo. The following morning, Halifax Regional Municipality’s animal services brought Duke home. The happy ending is one of many the lost dog network has had role in.
Morrison and her sister, Heather, see their website as a way to get the word out about missing dogs and provide a resource to those who are under emotional stress while their dogs are missing.
“We’ve all lost a dog, whether it was for five minutes or five days, and it is just heart-wrenching,” said Morrison.
The sisters are volunteers with the Alliance for Responsible Pet Ownership and are passionate about animals.
They created the website after locating a missing Burmese mountain dog over Christmas using Facebook and posters. The network of people they created through Facebook was determined to find the dog, which turned up after 11 cold days wandering in the woods.
“We thought, ‘Wow, we could do this for a lot of dogs,’ ” said Heather Morrison. They created the lost dog network website, found at bit.ly/eCGsAQ, soon after.
The sisters trawl Craigslist and Kijiji every day looking for new posts and people they can help. But people are now coming to them when their dogs go missing.
The majority expect the worst, thinking their pet is either stolen or lunch meat for a hungry coyote, the Morrisons said. They give encouragement to them, reminding them that 80 per cent of the time dogs are just lost.
The sisters post the information they receive from owners on their website and send it out via linked Twitter and Facebook accounts.
The site has photos of lost dogs as well as posts for dogs that people catch roaming in their yards and neighbourhoods.
And there’s a list of happy endings, dogs reunited with their owners, each filed with the same update: “Home safe ’n’ sound.”
( gbird@herald.ca)
