20/12/2024
My day started with a bit of depressing news today. A woman wrote me a message that just broke my heart. She responded to my attempt to recruit more pet rescuers to sign up for our upcoming (Jan 15th) MAR Course. I'm going to post her message along with my response. Perhaps some of you who don't really KNOW my story will understand why my heart breaks for this woman who reached out for help, but did not receive any.
HER MESSAGE:
"I am going to unsubscribe to your site and wanted to let you know I have a pet that has been missing for 40+ days. I have repeatedly reached out to people on your list (the Missing Animal Response Network Pet Detective Directory) with no reply after you sent me a notice that is what I should do. So........"
MY RESPONSE:
"I am so deeply sorry to hear this Marie and your pain (frustration, perhaps even anger with me) is understandable. I am no longer personally able to counsel and help the literally hundreds of pet owners each day across North America who reach out for assistance when their loved pet is missing. And the people I've trained are also burdened with being overwhelmed. There is just NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE trained in lost pet recovery work. It is like an epidemic in that pet owners are crying out for help--some receive assistance, even having their pets recovered directly due to the people we've trained. But many others, like yourself, remain unserved and lost in hopelessness.
I am one person, doing the best that I can since 1999, to educate others and bring people in the pet industry (animal shelter staff, veterinarians, dog trainers, etc.) into a realization of the magnitude of the lost pet problem and our need to DO SOMETHING to help families search for and find their lost pets. However, my "preaching" about the need for lost pet recovery services went unnoticed. No one seemed to care about lost pet recovery UNTIL IT HAPPENED TO THEM! I have seen this over and over and over again. I would try to impress on someone more "famous" than me in the pet industry to HELP BUILD LOST PET RECOVERY SOLUTIONS with me in the organizaiton I had formed, but they were just "too busy." But boy, when THEIR cat escaped from their home (or THEIR dog escaped from their pet sitter), they were on the phone with me, BEGGING ME FOR HELP! But of course, there was no one trained in their area to help them, so I tried.
Before I had trained others, before we had Missing Animal Response Technicians who physically respond to help track, trap, detect, and recover lost dogs and cats, my phone would ring endlessly with people begging me to help them. My life felt like I was THE ONLY VETERINARIAN in North America and everyone with a sick dog or cat was calling me, asking me to come to their community to help them. I knew that flying my bloodhounds to Florida or Alaska or Toronto (I was offered a lot of money to do this) was NOT the answer--the answer was taking my knowledge, developing a training program, and training OTHERS to do this work. I watched my bloodhounds grow old, whither, and die and NOT live out their true potential, all because I knew I needed to focus on education and training and not on individual rescues anymore. I paid the price, and so did my sweet search dogs who've long since passed.
From 1999 until 2022, I spoke every year at countless animal welfare conferences to animal shelter workers who were move concerned about spay / neuter, TNR (trap-neuter-return of feral cats), and great adoptions than they were about the issue of lost pets. Even when I explained that their shelter kennels were filled with "stray" dogs and cats that were mostly LOST PETS that needed to be reunited with their families, they didn't listen.
In March 2022, my (disabled) husband Johnny and my lives were upended when we lost our housing (today we are still in temporary housing, all our belongings in storage). I realized that it was time for me to STOP beating my head against the wall. I can no longer try to "educate" the animal shelter, veterinary, dog training, pet sitting, or any other pet industry community about the need for lost pet recovery services by speaking at conferences. There just has to be a better way.
So in 2025, I'm taking a new approach. I will soon be announcing changes that will be coming to my organization and they will be massive. I am just not prepared to write about it yet because I am still seeking God's direction in many aspects of the ministry that we will build. It might take us several years to see the day when people like yourself receive the help that they ask for. I just have to believe, as I have for many years, that THIS DAY IS COMING.
I am just so, SO deeply sorry that today is not that day for YOU. I understand your grief and your pain. I wish that I could say that I could instantly bring your beloved lost pet home, but I am just one person with a vision and a mission from God, and I simply can NOT do this alone. We need MORE people trained to offer these services!"
