[yorkietalkjilly]

We learned to train a dog to respond to a silent alarm. I use a Dazer II to call Tibbe when we're outside. It is a high sonic sound humans can't hear but dogs do and some bark but mostly they stop barking and listen, try to figure it out or run away. Tibbe is trained to run to me when he hears it and usually barks as he's coming out of excitement. He would hear that if he were being held inside someone's house and try to get to me if he could if I sounded that silently while I stood on the porch. If he were to bark or scream out as he does when very excited, I think I would know his sound. If he were out in a backyard and heard it, he would run to the fence and bark, scream, claw on the fence. He's been encouraged to do all that when he hears the Dazer II go off with lots of praise and good treats.

We learned to get an I.D. tag for the new dog and put it on the dog as soon as you get to the puppy/dog's seller's home/shelter/rescue, before you get in your car to bring them home. Much later, we learned to take the dog in for a microchip as soon as physically possible.

We learned most older people were not very helpful, disinterested, a little distrustful or scared of us knocking on their doors or wanting to talk to them, look in their back yards, etc., so we learned to try to bring a younger neighborhood little girl with us or stand way back after we rang the doorbell, talk softly, leave our flyer and leave quickly if they weren't chatty. There was one exception who helped us a lot all she could.

We learned to use all the young people you can in your search. Kids in the area know everything that is going on in the neighborhood, good if it's a residential area the dog is lost in or there is one somewhere near the area of disappearance. When Scotty followed me out the door one night as I got something from the car in the middle of the night and I thought he was still in bed under the covers the whole time until morning, I went straight to kids out walking to school as soon as I missed him and panicked. One directed me to a kid on the next block who said he'd seen a little dog that morning. I went to that block, saw some kids and they said, oh, that little dog is under that car there and he won't come out! It was little Scotty!

We learned Boy and Girl Scouts will help you look, as will little league teams if you offer a nice reward of some kind, $$$ or a pizza party.

We learned you can cover a lot of ground in apartment houses, getting a 9 - 12 year old girl or boy to show you around within the complex and accompany you and be your advocate thereafter after slipping them a $20.00.

If there is a dog freak in the area with dog decals on their car, dog decorations about the yard or lots of indicators this is a true doglover, that person and usually his family will look for you and help a lot with his organizations.

Garbage collectors and postal workers help look, given a poster and some candy or cupcakes. Back in that day, the family who delivered newspapers helped look.

Local churches were helpful to tell their congregations or print a blurb in their Sunday newsletter besides having the posters. Local businesses were often a willing helper in allowing posters, brochures.

Those are just some of the things we learned in searching for Robin besides those things the Lost Dog brochures and directives at the vet clinics, in books and such told you to do. We didn't have the internet, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, when Robin was lost so we had limited ways to try to find what all to do to search.

Much of what we learned in talking with people, reading all we could, etc., helped keep subsequent dogs safe from getting lost in the first place and we learned a lot we didn't know from the searching. Robin sure helped me find Scotty ASAP so all our work back then helped. I'll bet before long, you will be a walking though very tired encyclopedia on how to keep a dog safe but find it if it's lost. Maybe you can do a pamphlet or small book when you are finished searching. I would like to read it!