06/02/2023
This is a great article on what not to do when your searching for your lost dog! This includes the DO NOT CHASE or DO NOT CALL the dog.
Lure Lost or Stray Dogs, Do Not Chase After Them
DECEMBER 31, 2019 by MARADMIN
Losing a pet can be one of the most stressful times in your life. Most pet owners these days treat their pets like children or at least consider them part of the family. Our best advice for a lost or stray dog is to LURE them back, DO NOT CHASE after them.
So, what does DO NOT CHASE mean exactly?
All too often when pets go missing or escape from their owners, the first instinct is to yell their name and run after them. Another technique used is to create a search party and go looking for them in cars, quads, ATV or UTV vehicles. All this falls under the DO NOT CHASE rule. Chasing a lost dog is simply any forward movement in the direction of the dog, even as little as one step could, in the dog’s mind, be considered chasing. Also, dogs can hear much better than we can, so anything with a motor will scare them before you even get near their location.
If you are a pet owner, police, or just someone trying to help the family of a lost dog and you are driving behind or following a dog around in your car, you are chasing the dog. You simply cannot sp*ed around after a roaming dog and expect to capture it. The dog will run further and faster the harder you sp*ed after it. Police do this to hunt down a criminal, but it does not work that way for lost or stray dogs.
How can you help in the right way?
The first thing you must do as an owner of a lost pet is to try and remain calm. We understand you are in panic mode, but so is your dog. They have just started an adventure out into a world they may not be familiar with and it is scary for them too. For lost dogs it is FIGHT or FLIGHT, most will choose flight. They are going to run, they do not take the time and say to themselves you’re their Mom or Dad, but to them at that moment, you are a PREDATOR. This is one of the hardest concepts to understand as a lost dog owner. Most in our experience must see their dog’s response of running away from them to finally understand this concept.
If your dog is still in sight after running away, please do the following:
Slowly get low or lay flat on the ground
Avoid eye contact
Speak softly with a calm voice
Do not reach for your dog, if it comes close let your dog touch you first, for some that are very skittish we will let them touch us multiple times. If you reach, the dog may run away.
Give your dog time to recognize your voice or your smell.
Secondly, you start LURING your dog back to you. It is important that you move slowly and use techniques like “Calming Signals”. Below is a video on Calming Signals, so you better understand what we mean.
