I lost a clients dog…twice

I walked dogs professionally for almost 10 years, and over that time I walked around 6 dogs a day on 2 or 3 different walks, and I did this 5 days a week.

That’s 6 dogs x 5 days x 52 weeks x 10 years = 15,600 opportunities to lose a dog, and I only did it twice (spoiler – you can relax, they were both back with me within the hour). Keep reading to find out what happened.

It’s going to happen at some point to you too, no matter how careful, diligent and attentive you are, something unexpected will happen and hopefully you’ll have them back to you within the hour too, if not sooner.

What to do if a dog goes missing.

Despite everything your brain is telling you to do…STOP.

Don’t move from the spot you’re in now. Most dogs when they run off for whatever reason eventually stop and turn to follow their own scent back to where they were.

This means the chances of your lost dogs coming back to the exact spot you’re stood in is high, so don’t go searching just yet. Most dogs stay within 1/2 mile of where they go missing as long as they’re not chased.

Is there anyone at home? 16% of lost dogs just go home. If their home is within 1/2 mile of where you lost them then this figure increases. Call the owner if they’re home to check outside, make sure they stay there and keep an eye out for their dog, reassure them that most dogs are back in a few minutes and as soon as you find them you’ll call them.

Is anyone with you? Get them to walk ahead and look. Dogs are far more likely to move forward along a path, than back the way you came.

Even if you don’t find them immediately, stay calm. 90% of dogs are found within the first 12 hours.

Are they an outgoing, sociable dog? Look for people or other dogs as that’s where they will naturally gravitate towards.

Are they a shy dog? Move calmly and look around bushes, parked cars and walls for hiding places.

Lost for over an hour?

Utilise social media, especially local Facebook groups. Share a post on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Include a clear photo of the dog, your contact information, and a brief description of where your dog was last seen. Tell them not to chase the dog, but just to keep them in sight and call you. Dogs are more likely to come to someone they know and may get spooked into running further if approached by random well-meaning members of the public.

Vets and dog wardens will scan any found dogs for microchips and call the number on file. If the owners’ details are up to date then calling local vets should be a lower priority for you than looking for the dog.

So what happened to me?

Nevada

I’d been in business for around 6 months and was building a nice client base, all local dogs, not too much travelling eating into profits and the majority of my time was spent walking and not driving. Which was a good thing because, as previously mentioned, I had a tiny vauxhall tigra car at this time.

I’d been walking Nevada the Husky (names have been changed to protect the innocent) for a couple of months. She was one of those excitable huskies (i.e. all of them) but she was really good off lead. I started her on a long line and she came back time after time when called so I’d been walking her offlead for a few weeks without any dramas.

We walked nearby to her house on the grounds of a national trust property. Same route every time, round the back of the mansion house, down the avenue of trees, round the back of the lake and back to the front of the mansion house.

I’d got to the top of the lake where Nevada was out in front of me, someone said hello from behind me so I turned, said hi to one of the other regular walkers and turned back.

She was gone.

I didn’t immediately panic, I’m not that sort of person, but I called her straight away thinking she had dived off to the left into the bushes and off the path. She didn’t return when I called.

I called again, louder… nothing.

Now the panic starts to creep in. It’s not an immediate surge of adrenaline, more like a seeping, building coldness that starts at your stomach and creeps up to your throat. I call her again… nothing.

I didn’t know what to do. I was new to the job, I didn’t know any other walkers who had lost dogs, and I didn’t have any idea what to do next. So I turned around to trace my steps and started asking everyone I saw if they’d seen a husky.

This turns out to be the wrong thing to do. Dogs are far more likely to run ahead and then return to where they left you as they follow their own scent back. I should have stayed still, I should have waited, and if she didn’t return I should have walked forwards around the lake, as there was only that direction she could have gone in and the lake provided a natural boundary to stop her going any other direction.

But I didn’t. I walked back and was almost back to the mansion house when someone shouted to me “Are you looking for a Husky?”

Relief

She had indeed followed our usual path around the lake and back to the front of the mansion house where, much to my relief, she was having a whale of a time playing with all the people there. When she heard me call she sprinted towards me, I dropped to my knees and started sobbing with relief.

I think the sobbing went some way to alleviating some of the annoyance these people had about being accosted by a bouncy adolescent Husky for the past 10 minutes so there’s that.

Lessons learnt;

1. 10 minutes feels like 10 hours when you’ve misplaced someone else’s dog
2. You absolutely bond with client’s dogs as you would your own
3. Research what to do in a situation before you get into that situation

Macy

Macy is a little, black, cockerpoo. She came to me as a referral from a friend, which is always nice, and she lived super close to my home, so bonus!

She had a few anxiety issues, but I’d been working now for 6 years, I’d been offering training as a side hustle and was halfway through my degree in canine behaviour management, so I felt I was educated enough to make good choices for Macy while we were out on our walks and we’d built a nice bond.

Because of her issues, we would walk in woodland where we saw very few dogs and I would take my own dog who she learned to enjoy the company of, and they would walk off lead together. It became a favourite walk of mine because the dogs enjoyed the woodland, we saw very few people which suited all of us and the entire walk was off lead and free.

Over time, we started meeting up with another professional dog walker and her two clients’ dogs, who, again, were introduced to Macy carefully so as not to increase her anxiety and these meet-ups became fairly regular.

So we were surprised one day to round a corner on a forest trail and to be met with about 30 army cadets and their stereotypical CO barking orders at his cadets.

We gathered the dogs on leads, my friend’s two and my own dog but Macy had gone.

This time I knew what to do. Stay where I was and if anything, move forward along our usual route.

But the army cadets were ahead of us on our normal route so there’s no way she would have gone that way.

We called her. Nothing.

We looked left and right through the trees, calling, asking each other if we’d seen where she went.

Nothing.

The army cadets started to move, marching off the path into the woods. Would they spook her further away if they were walking the same way she went?

My friend handed me the leads and said she’d try and cut them off and see if she could find Macy first, be less threatening and hopefully get her on a lead before she bolted further. If she’d run in the other direction then we’d just have to rely on her following her scent back and at least the cadets were moving away from her.

It sounded like a good plan.

Sometimes, not doing anything is far more difficult than doing something.

Standing there with the three dogs on leads, with every fibre of me wanting to go into the woods and look for her but knowing that was the wrong thing to do, was really difficult.

I kept looking left and right trying to spot her. My friend had been gone for what felt like forever. The cadets were no longer in sight. I called my friend, but nothing, no sign, and she was doubling back to the path now.

An age passed. That cold panic making its creeping journey once again from stomach to throat. I, trying to imagine the conversation I would have with her owners, should I call now, wait for a bit, how long, what would I say…then the phone rang, it was my friend.

“I’ve got her, she’s on a lead now, coming back to you”

Relief.

They popped out of the undergrowth minutes later, Macy clearly upset by the whole event but my friend, quite rightly, beaming from ear to ear.

Lessons learnt;

1. 10 minutes will always feel like ten hours when you’ve lost someone else dog, it’s not just the first time that it feels that way.
2. Expect the unexpected, and the unexpected can send a good day sideways even if you’re an experienced dog professional
3. Even when you know exactly what to do in a situation, actually doing it can be hard.