Finding Lost Pets Is About to Get Easier

It’s often the worst nightmare for pet owners – having discovered their beloved four-legged friend is missing, driving around frantically, asking anyone, “Have you seen my pet?”

Panic and confusion set in, rendering the search for their missing Fido a futile one, likely rife with emotional stress. Patty Dill of East Windsor, a certified Animal Control Officer, is hoping that she can soon answer that question with an affirmative “yes.”

Dill is in the last stages of launching her business that specifically deals with finding lost pets and getting them back to their homes as quickly as possible.

The service that she is looking to provide, she said, is really an underserved one in this area.

“With the budget cuts going on everywhere, people don’t know who to call when their pet goes missing,” she said.

Most of the time, the lost pet situation just takes a bit of investigating and asking questions – although Dill said every scenario is different.

Other times, she said, she utilizes her extensive contacts in the area – which include several veterinarian offices, as well as animal control offices spanning a handful of towns.

The idea found her, she said, when she was outside recently and witnessed a woman and her husband driving slowly around a suburban development roving for their missing Rover.

The key in any missing pet scenario, she said, is that one “asks a lot of questions.”

And although she said she respects and recognizes that to a pet owner, their four-legged friend is an extremely important part of their family, she said her unemotional attachment allows her to ask comprehensive questions and think in a clear, logistical manner.

Upon asking the husband and wife multiple questions, she and the pair went back to the couple’s backyard – which featured huge gates bordering the property.

Dill immediately knew the large Afghan breed of dog that was missing could have not possibly scooted around the fencing, so she started looking closer at the contents of the yard.

“I looked under their deck, which had a lattice-style encasing, and saw [what looked like] a small hole,” she said.

Dill then peeked inside underneath the deck and saw the dog running back and forth.

Often, dogs will not bark when called, she said, because they are frightened.

The idea to start the business registered when Dill realized that the couple had been searching for the dog for over an hour, and Dill had relied on her professional experience and located the pet in 5 minutes.

In addition to launching the pet finding business, Dill continues her work with her pet sitting company, All Paws, in East Windsor.

The Hickory Corner Road resident goes into homes when clients are on vacation or working longer hours to attend to the needs of their pets.

The benefit of working in and around East Windsor and Cranbury, she noted, is that she knows a lot of pets through her clients, who average out to about 250 a year.

Right now, Dill is focusing on establishing a rate for her locating expertise. She said that her website for the pet finding service will officially launch some time this upcoming week. In the meantime, she can be reached at 609-426-8800 and patty@lostpawsinvestigators.com. [Editor's note: The website is now up! www.lostpawsinvestigators.com]