Pet detectives track down missing animals

Jul 13, 2008 1:42 PM (17 hrs ago) AP
» 17 hrs ago: Pet detectives track down missing animals «

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Laura Totis and her four-year-old German shepherd Chewy arrived at the Reisterstown cul-de-sac. Two days earlier Biscuit, a freshly shorn Wheaten terrier, had fled in a panic.

Waiting for Totis were Biscuit's owner, Namha Corbin, and the dog-sitting friend on whose watch Biscuit had vanished.

Totis is one of two full-time pet detectives in the Baltimore area. Her friendly competitor is Sam Connelly of Pure Gold Pet Trackers. They both get several calls each week about a missing pet.

Usually it's a dog or cat, but the two have looked for a ferret in Canton, a llama, and even a pet skunk in Pennsylvania.
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Totis and Connelly offer practical advice as part of their services. For example, they recommend well-placed posters with a phone number in large type.

Such techniques were recommended by Connelly to a client. They led to the return of Mike the ferret after a neighbor who had seen posters glimpsed the weasel slinking across his backyard.

But both detectives stand ready to deploy their four-legged associates, whose noses are capable of following a smell to its source.

That's exactly what Chewy was eager to do in Reisterstown when she hopped out of the car in her blue harness. She was offered a few whiffs of Biscuit's dog bed.

The details of Biscuit's disappearance: Mareco Edwards, Corbin's friend, said Corbin, a lawyer, had dropped Biscuit off at his place Sunday before leaving on a business trip. Everything went fine until one evening when Edwards was working in his garage with Biscuit lying nearby. Then came a crack of bone-rattling thunder.

Dog and man jumped. Then came another ear-splitting clap. This time, Biscuit ran out of the open garage.

Edwards, a 39-year-old insurance broker, gave chase, then searched from his SUV. Nothing.

Corbin got home, and there was still no sign of her dog. She immediately joined Edwards in the search, but other than finding out that two neighbors had seen Biscuit in their yard, the night turned up nothing. The next day, Corbin and Edwards took off work to print fliers, visit animal shelters and post Web notices.

Edwards stumbled across the Web site of LJT Training, Totis' dog training and tracking business in Hampstead.

The 45-year-old Totis said the large entourage could make a nervous dog even more so. Still, Totis thought Chewy might be able to provide vital clues about Biscuit's flight path.

Totis says about 80 percent of her animal cases are successful. She never did find that pet skunk in Pennsylvania, and the llama was captured before she got there.

A dedicated pet owner is the most important element, she says. In this case, Biscuit not only had ID tags but a microchip embedded under her skin.

Chewy began to pull Totis, dropping her snout to the ground as she raced around Freshman Court, over manicured yards, across Diploma Drive, down Transcript Circle and into still more yards.

Within minutes, Chewy gave her first head lift, a sign that she'd made an olfactory match. This was near woods a few hundred yards from Edwards' home.

As Totis and Chewy moved into the woods, Edwards followed with his flashlight. Corbin called out, "Biscuit! Come on, boo-boo bear, where are you?"

Chewy kept poking around the woods, trailing what Totis termed a very good track. But then, inexplicably, she lost her way.

Totis was optimistic. It appeared that Biscuit had passed this way. No corpse meant she was probably still alive, maybe not too far away.

The search continued, but after two hours, the team was ready to call it a night.

They returned to Edwards' home and met around his dining table. Biscuit had almost certainly been in those woods, and conceivably still was. She'd also been in the two yards where neighbors saw her, but based on Chewy's signals was not inside either house or in that immediate area now.

Totis' instructions: Put food by the woods, along with flour to indicate whether any footprints left behind were Biscuit's. Put an old shirt of Corbin's on the ground to give Biscuit a familiar smell.

Totis asked for $50, mostly to cover her time and gas. Edwards doubled it, grateful for the leads and tips.

They did everything Totis recommended.

About 36 hours later, Corbin's cell phone rang. P.J. Bean was calling.

He had Biscuit.

The dog was alive and safe. Hungry and tired, but in good shape.

Bean had not seen the posters. But Chewy had been right: Bean lives a short walk from the woods and first saw Biscuit the day before Totis and Chewy's search.

All that mattered to Corbin was that she had her dog back.