Rescue Shit
Go behind the scenes with Pate and jme from Motley Zoo Animal Rescue. Learn about rescue, pet ownership, dog training, volunteering, fostering, and more- plus, hear the untold stories of the animals as told by this dynamic duo who have been partners for almost 16 years.
Despite the name, this is not an explicit podcast though the content is geared toward adults to learn in-depth about their pets and the world of animal welfare.
Rescue Shit
The one about lost and found pets!
Check out ways to prevent your pets from being lost- and tricks and tips to help find them if you do!
Special thanks to Jim Branson, at 3retrievers.com and Max & Neo who make and donate the best martingales (with locking clasps).
Original music by Matt Setter and friend Sean!
Original content by Matt Setter and friend, Sean!
Hi, I'm Jamie.
Pate:I'm Patti and this is Motley Zoo Animal Rescue
jme:and our podcast, Rescue Shit. Yay. Oh, that's even better. Yeah.
Pate:Do it again.
jme:Okay. Rescue Shit. We finally remembered the squeaker. I'm impressed. I'm impressed, Patty, because I didn't remember.
Pate:I got it this time.
jme:So today we're going to talk about lost pets. What happens when you lose a pet, some ways to get them back to you, and what to do if you find a dog, especially. Cats are probably going to have to be trapped. They don't usually come to you. But, um, so. I feel like we're lucky because this hasn't happened to us very often. I think in the history of Motley Zoo, I only remember three dogs going missing. I remember two cats going missing, um, which is pretty great for 16 years. Yeah. And I would say almost every week we hear about a dog from a rescue that gets out. And so, It really seems to be pretty impressive that we're pretty good about it.
Pate:And then she just jinxed us.
jme:Fuck, I did. I know, oh my gosh. Yeah, I shouldn't even have said that.
Pate:No, no, no, no.
jme:I shouldn't have said that.
Pate:Yeah, because the universe is going to be like, hmm, hold my beer, bitch.
jme:Why do I do that?
Pate:I don't know.
jme:That's the story of my life.
Pate:But anyway, if that happens, at least we're prepared.
jme:Yes, we will listen to our own podcast and figure out how to find them.
Pate:Take the steps.
jme:So one of the dogs that I end up fostering, I fostered him after he was found. His name was Danny and He went to the foster home, and one of the mistakes the foster made was letting him out to meet the family in the front yard that isn't fenced. Thinking back on it now, it probably seems obvious, you know, maybe that wasn't a great idea. People don't think that in the moment.
Pate:No, they're excited, they got this new puppy, um, he's so cute, um, Yeah, you don't think, oh, this cute puppy is scared, and the minute I open that door, he's gonna book it.
jme:Yeah, and I will say that this foster is now one of our best fosters. She's an amazing foster, um, and I'm glad that we got through it okay. Um, but one of the things that we do tell the fosters is please don't open the crate until you're in the vet office, in the house. Um, even in, not in a fenced yard even, because we've had dogs go under the porch and you can't get them out for hours. They have to sleep outside sometimes, which is not cool. Um, but that's because, you know, people really didn't listen to what we were saying. So it's very important not to open a crate of a dog that's new to you or cat that's new to you.
Pate:Whether you're fostering or adopting.
jme:Yes. Until you are in a safe place. Yeah. And that's true, uh, we've had dogs that, um, well, okay, we had
Pate:No, we have. Remember Jessica.
jme:So, it happened to Jessica and, it wasn't Salud. What was her name?
Pate:Who?
jme:The white dog that I fostered, and then she got hit by a car and that was Shana Tova.
Pate:Uh, no, but that was a harness. That wasn't. She'd had her a while.
jme:Oh. Okay.
Pate:That's, yeah, that's why we don't like harnesses.
jme:We don't like harnesses. Okay, so going back, a lot of times when people adopt a dog, they think that because we've fostered them that, you know, maybe this They don't think,
Pate:still, it's very emotional, right?
jme:Yeah.
Pate:We're excited. We're nervous. This dog's so cute. I just want to cuddle it and make it feel better. And no,
jme:no, it's still very likely that they will go running because they don't know you. One of the ways that we combat this is we tell people to keep a leash on even in the house. Because sometimes if dogs are scared, they will go hide under the couch, and then you're trying to reach for them, and then they might bite because they're so terrified you're cornering them. So, having the leash on a new dog is a great idea. Keep a clean indoor one, slap a dirty outdoor one on when they go into the yard, but better yet, don't take the leash out of your hand for quite a while. Anyway, so one of the dogs that got out, Danny, is He was gone for almost a week, right?
Pate:I thought it was over a week.
jme:Maybe, but it started
Pate:It felt like forever.
jme:It did. It felt like a long time. And, you know, I went out looking for him in the area that we saw him. We set up a trap because somebody said they saw him. Somebody stole the trap.
Pate:Oh my god, and they put it in front of the grocery store. Remember that?
jme:I was so mad. But it's funny because I wrote something on Facebook that was like there's a special place for you that interfere with our, you know, catching our animals and, you know, everybody thought you wrote it. But it was me. They've never heard me speak so firmly. Anyway, so we get a call one day and somebody said, this dog is in my backyard. And I'm like, great. Close the gate. I will be there in, you know, 15 minutes. I went over there and he was clearly tired. He was terrified. Yep. And he was kind of tangled up in the ivy, so I think that's actually what stopped him from running, is that he got tangled up, and then he got tired trying to escape.
Pate:Well, and he was in a backyard this time, so that they could shut the door.
jme:Yes, and I carefully, slowly went over to him, reached out. Put the leash on first thing
Pate:slip lead.
jme:Yep, and then tried to extricate him from the ivy and He just kind of fell into my arms and the family that had found him. It was actually the little five year old Yeah. He had seen the posters.
Pate:See, the posters work. They say the first thing that you do, get those big, bright posters with the picture.
jme:Yes. He had seen the posters and he said, Mom, I saw this dog is missing. There is a poster. And he showed her where to find the poster. And so we, we praised him and we told him what a good job he did. I even sent him a little care package with some t shirts for him and his brother. But they did ask me if they could pet him. And while he was okay with me touching him, I didn't want to take the risk. And I told him, no, I'm sorry, you know, I don't know how he'll react. And I, I understand why you want to touch him, but I don't think we should do that. And the mom was like, okay, totally understand. And I still feel bad that I didn't, but,
Pate:But, I mean, this is Dani. Dani's like a little nervous guy, and you really, and kids are different than, than adults, for sure, their energy level, everything like that. I mean, we could have the most social dog who's great with adults. Like there's no such thing as a stranger. And then you have a kid enter the room and they're like, what is that?
jme:Yeah. You know, some dogs just really, yeah, don't like children. And so, so I didn't let them pet him. I took him home and he was Kind of crazy. He was bouncing off the walls and I mean he was, and that's not the kind of dog I usually foster.
Pate:No, no.
jme:But eventually he got adopted and he started coming to our daycare. He would lose his mind when he saw me and everything he learned in training would go out the window and I even boarded him once and I told her I feel like I'm ruining his training because I can't manage him because he just loses his mind that he remembers that I'm the one that picked him up and saved him. And it's just brings out all these crazy emotions in him that he can't control. So I told her, I don't think I can board him anymore. Right. Um, but so this was a good story. It ended up good. Uh, and, you know, Like, it, it doesn't have to be a new foster or a new adopter to make a mistake or for this to happen. Even one time when Bryan and I were fostering, and this was when we first started Motley Zoo, and we were actually watching the dog of a new foster. He got out the door and ran. Ran down the driveway, on the busy road, up the next driveway.
Pate:See ya bitches, I'm out.
jme:And Bryan and I were like, we lost a foster, foster's dog! And I had to tell her that, We were looking for him. Thankfully, he was just hiding in the bushes at the next door neighbor's house, and we brought our little dog out to kind of try and draw him out or to sniff him out, and that's actually how we found him. Jetty ended up sniffing him out. But, you know, that's me, and I've had a lot of different dogs. And I was really careful, and Brian was really careful. So, it can happen to anybody, and that's what you have to remember. The important part is to be prepared, and to try and prevent it with all these different things. I've really been rambling, so why don't you talk about some of the ways to prevent this in the first place.
Pate:Like jme said, when you get a new dog in the home, you use a drag leash. A drag leash is basically you let them drag it around and if a dog is nervous the very first few days, you know, We did a podcast on three three three so the first three days are They're gonna be touch and go some some dogs, right? Some dogs are like super like hey, how you doing? I mean social butterflies the majority of dogs It's not so much like, I don't know you, I don't know what's going on. So you have that drag leash, especially with the adult dogs, right? Not with the puppies.
jme:Yeah, puppies will eat it. So that's, that's another thing is a puppy probably is going to follow you. And you know, some dogs will chew those leashes. So on occasion you may need to get a cable leash or a lightweight chain leash. To work on these things.
Pate:Yeah, so the drag leash is one of the first things. If you know that your dog's a door dasher, you can set up, baby gates so that they can't get to the door or, the exercise pens, the play pens that you can just blockade the door with.
jme:I think to hang. a leash next to the door and make sure that that leash is on your dog before you open it. Maybe even put a sign on your door that says, Taking care of the dog or hang on an extra second because I have to secure the dog, right? This people will wait like yeah And if there's a little sign that says, you know, I have a dog inside right? I need to prepare them
Pate:I mean obviously training is going to Help one of the things that we teach our puppies is what we call threshold training So any type of threshold a doorway? they will stop at that doorway. And if you do it consistently, repetitively, repetition is the key to sink into their brain. They will stop at that door and sit and wait.
jme:Well, and it's important, I think to also teach them to sit and wait on the other side of that threshold. Otherwise, you're going out the door and they think the minute they're outside, they can run off and they yank your arm out of its socket while you're trying to lock the door.
Pate:Yeah. Um, and we've seen, we've seen those ring videos. That girl, she turns around to like, and then she just like. She gets pulled. I mean, literally like, like a movie pulled that quickly and because her dog saw something and he, he booked it with her attached to him, which is great. Yeah. And then there's that other one that you see where a guy's on the phone and he's walking out and he's on the phone and then his little like Frenchie barrels out of the door behind him and then like a car goes over the Frenchie. Like, thank God he got missed.
jme:Do you know that actually happened to Jetty? My fence had alternating slats on the front, on the inside, on the front, on the inside, and there was just enough gap that he ran through. We did not know this, of course, until he ran through. And, he ran straight into a car, coming, and the car went over him. And I just about lost my shit. I fell in the road and I was like sobbing and I had like crawled to him and I mean, I was just, yeah, and then he had to have a tether. So we had to have one of those little stakes and he would just run around in circles. And he was kind of neurotic anyways, so, imagine having like a little five pound dog on a tether, but it was because he could run right through the fence.
Pate:Yeah, but, um, yeah, and, and that happens. I mean, that's what happened when Maria Maria was one of our, dogs who, Was she had her puppies? We got her with her puppy. She was already nursing her puppies, and she was a little nervous and I had her in my house and She got over her nervousness at my house and the puppies were older And they had started going off to their foster to adopts and she was starting to come out of her shell, had some training, all that fun stuff. So it was time for her to go to another foster. And, um, yeah, and then the foster has
jme:Who was experienced.
Pate:Yes, and she has two small dogs who never left her yard. One of the foster's dogs is smaller than Maria Maria. And But Maria found a spot in that fence and was just like see you bitches and the husband is I think he's a marathon runner. I know he's a runner So and he chased her and then that is not what you're supposed to
jme:No But it's the first thing you're gonna think about
Pate:exactly right, but I mean and then'cause she was booking it So, I mean he obviously had to chase her to an extent just so that he could keep her In sight, but he eventually lost her.
jme:I will say that I was boarding a dog and he did the same, he pushed out the door and ran down the driveway straight to the busy road. And. I was like, Oh my God, he's going to run out in the road and I was like crying, but I remembered one of the tricks that you can do is stop and run the other direction and call to them and then they're like, Hey, what are we chasing? And so I'm like, Bosley, Bosley, I'm like, let's go. Let's go play. And I started running the other way. And he stopped and looked at me and then ran right towards me. Right. And I cried all the way into the house.
Pate:But yeah, and that works if you know the dog.
jme:Yes. If the dog is not shy and scared
Pate:and knows you, whereas like Maria, Maria, that was her very first morning with them. Spent the night and then the next morning. She's gone.
jme:So they should not have let her off the leash in the yard. That is how that could have been prevented. Right. Because they will find the hole in the fence. Yeah, like flies to shit. They will just target on it and they will be gone. You think that they won't find it, but they will. Especially a scared dog that's scared. Right. And they're like, walking the perimeter because they're like, I don't know this yard. I'm all scared. I'm by myself. Even if they're not by themselves, they panic and they will find it. So,
Pate:oh my God, where am I? Who are you? I'm going to go back to what I know.
jme:So don't let a new dog off the leash in the yard. This is also a trick to help with potty training too. If you take them on the leash to the same spot where they potty, then it will become robotic for them and they won't. I'm going to explore and not go to the bathroom. I'm going to go behind a bush and pretend I'm going to the bathroom, but I'm really not. These are all things. I say the leash is a 5 tool that solves a world of problems and doesn't let them start.
Pate:Yeah, exactly. You know, I mean, we always say when you first have a dog, You are very strict with them and there's no trust built up them, but they have to earn that trust. And when they earn that trust, they get a little more freedom. Kind of like what jme was saying. You don't let them have free run of the house because they don't know where the bathroom is. They don't know what door is the bathroom. And I mean, we can go into a strange house and be like, Hey, where's the bathroom? You know, they cannot. So the leash is kind of your, Well, I don't know, like the language, the dog language for them to go to the bathroom outside. Here's how we go outside. Here's the door where we go outside.
jme:Well, and it lets them explore in a controlled manner. You know, they can sniff, but they can only go so far and they have to look back to you, and they rely on you. So yeah, it's really important.
Pate:And then this is the only time that I ever use. Those retractable leashes.
jme:Oh yeah.
Pate:When you get a brand new dog. I shouldn't say a brand new dog, but, a scared or shy dog. Sometimes they won't go to the bathroom when they're right next to you, because you're just very tall and overwhelming, and they may need a little more space from you, but you don't want them to run amok. Because have fun chasing them in your backyard. We've had fun chasing some not chasing dogs, but trying to get them in the boarding kennel. Um,
jme:Sometimes we have five people and this is a dog that's been in someone's house for Ever and they're just like I don't know you i'm not going back in my kennel And it's not
Pate:even with her brother there.
jme:Yeah, it's not great when that happens. That is
Pate:that took four hours
jme:That is a frustration of mine.
Pate:Yeah, so yeah, we've learned from that. And so we have a smaller yard for the new dogs to acclimate.
jme:New to us dogs that we don't know how they're going to behave. Right. In the yard.
Pate:Yeah. And then we learn and if they're great and they're super social, then we'll put them in the big yard. So the same thing applies with, the dogs, if they're shy in your house or whatever. Just so you don't lose them, but say that they do get out like Maria Maria did. And, um, the first thing that you do is you, you make the signs, right? Those big, bright, obnoxious signs. The best ones are the ones that you put in the ground.
jme:Oh, the corrugated plastic with the, metal stakes.
Pate:Yep. With a big picture of the dog and your phone number lost. because everyone likes being rewarded. Your phone number and do not chase, just call us. And, I always recommend when we get people saying, Hey, I lost my dog or whatever. The first steps are to look at Three Retrievers and that is an organization led by Jim Branson who has scent dogs and he, looks for dogs and cats. He has a dog specifically to find dogs and he has a dog specifically to find cats. And his website has step by step instructions of what to do when you lose a dog. And when you find them, like, most people are going to call their dog. They're going to be like, hey, Buffy. Yeah, don't do that. You don't want to call them. Right now they're in an instinctual mode. They got out. They're nervous. They're scared. They're running for their lives until they calm down, right? When they're running, that's an instinctual mode. It's not cognitive. They're not going to recognize their name. They're just going to hear a monster, you know, monster chasing them, you know, like the, the voice or whatever. So they will not come to the name more often than not. So that's one of the things that they tell you not to do, is call your dog and you want to make those posters, get them everywhere within a five mile radius. If we had not done those signs, we never would have found Danny. No, it was a five year old kid in the back of the car looking at these, like, big ol signs and he couldn't read them. But he was like, I saw that dog because it was a big ol sign that was obnoxiously bright with a big ol picture of Danny. And another way is word of mouth as well. So you've got Nextdoor, PawBoost, Facebook. You've got, you know, like Lost Pets Facebook groups.
jme:Yeah, like we have one called Lost Dogs of King County.
Pate:And Lost Dogs of Snohomish. Actually, there's two of them. Mm hmm. And I don't, I don't know why there's two.
jme:Once they're out of your sight and you know, you need to make these posts, have someone else do it if you're still going to go looking for them or whatever,
Pate:and ring ring.
jme:Oh, yeah. Yeah. We found that these are some of the fastest ways to become reunited with your pets is these guys. What are they called? Social media, I guess, social media apps. And so it's really important that you try all the things right. And maybe you'll get a sighting. Then you move some of your signs to closer to that sighting.
Pate:Because some dogs and some cats. I mean, cats. I mean, they're not coming to you. Just forget it. I mean, have fun with that. Okay, maybe, I shouldn't say they're not coming to you ever. Some cat may randomly come up to you. But, More often than not, you have to trap. Yeah. And that's another thing in that when you trap an animal, you leave a trap out. It's really, really important to monitor that trap. You have to monitor and keep eyes on that trap and especially cats because cats in a trap can freak out and actually, you know, cause harm to themselves.
jme:The other thing too is that People think cats must be long gone, but they're so often actually right close to you and they're hiding somewhere. So look really carefully in your yard and your neighbor's yard. And you have to tell your neighbors that you lost your cat and what it looks like because your cats often live inside. And so your neighbors may not even know that you have a cat. That happens a lot. So, I totally forgot what I was saying. So, let's talk about when Jim went and took his, dogs to find Maria Maria.
Pate:Oh, he did not find her. But he was able to find her trail, and we found out that she was being chased by coyotes, which was, you know, even more nerve wracking, because she's a little chihuahua mix, so.
jme:How did he know that?
Pate:The scat. And then they could smell,
jme:her trail mm-hmm And the coyotes.
Pate:Yep. Yep. And then the thing is, is like Jim said, there's a lot of wildlife, there's a lot of rabbits. Most likely, you know, they weren't looking for a meal. They were. You know, drawn to, hey, what's this? But that's not always the case, as we know. because coyotes do prey on, our pets that are out and about.
jme:They're right on the leash. They'll take a dog off a leash.
Pate:Yeah. So I just want to say, like, if you have an air horn You should walk around with an air horn because that will stop a coyote because those things are loud and obnoxious. They also stop aggressive dogs on the loose. Cause if you see a dog running at you and you have that air horn and you blast it at them more often than not, they're going to be like, well, and then. Book it because, you know,
jme:how far away was Maria when she was found, Danny was about three miles. Yeah, exactly. Four or five miles.
Pate:Yeah, exactly. There were sightings of her, which was great. But by the time we got to that sighting, she'd already left. And so Gary and I were on Monroe. She was in Tampa. We would drive. We drove multiple times anytime there was a sighting.
jme:Tampa.
Pate:And. Did I say to Tacoma?
jme:Is this a Florida story or a local story?
Pate:Tacoma? I do that a lot. Anyway, um, I'm from Florida. I'm not from Florida, but I live there for a long time. Anyway. So yeah, so we would drive from Monroe to Tampa to Tacoma to Tacoma. To try to find her,
jme:which is like two hours.
Pate:Yeah. And then she was, she was not even there. And then we go home and then there's another sighting, but she's a mile away. And I'm like, right. So we're not even in the right spot, but, we had brought our dogs hoping that that would entice her to come out. It didn't. She eventually got found because. She was on someone's porch like kind of like Danny how they kind of got cornered or whatever Fortunately, the guy brought her in and guess what social media? Boom, you're like, hey, we found this dog and I'm like
jme:Well, and he didn't even have to go to the vet and scan the microchip anything like that Cuz we've made it a big deal. How long was she gone for?
Pate:Like Danny I think it was like over a week
jme:And After three days, you start to lose some hope because you know, what's out there, you know, there's so many coyotes, there's highways, there's roads.
Pate:Oh yeah, she crossed the busy road. But yeah, we fortunately found her. Thank you. And she's been adopted. So Jim Branson. Has his scent dogs and, Gary is actually our lead trainer, my husband, is actually taking our dogs, Liam and Rob. are doing scent work, and they go out and find, they're more dog than cat. Mm hmm. Guess Jim said that you pick one or the other. Instead of both. So, Hopefully, you know, Gary will be able to help with that because Jim is in such high demand That it's crazy. Yeah, it can take some days, you know, and by then you're like, yeah, what's happening within that time frame? Where are they the scent gets a little bit older if it rains. I mean geez
jme:well and how much does this cost approximately to have?
Pate:I don't know, is it like 300?
jme:I want to say it's 300 Yeah, that's what I recall and obviously we'll pay anything to get our animals back, but he is in high demand.
Pate:Yeah. And he knows what he's doing. I mean, he's been doing this for a while, and that's why I said, when you lose a dog, get on that, I mean, before you even lose a dog, when you have a pet, you should go to three retrievers and know what to do. Be prepared. What to do if your dog ever got out, you know, and got lost or cat.
jme:Yeah. So what happens when you find a dog? Why don't you tell them about Jason?
Pate:Yeah.
jme:He was a difficult dog to get.
Pate:Yeah. So Jason was on the side of a highway I got called about him and,
jme:someone who knew you.
Pate:Oh yeah. Yeah. So She called me and said that there was a German shepherd mix on the side of the highway that he was scared. People were there. Not knowing what to do, he wouldn't come to them and that, you know, he's growling and snapping and lunging. And then I was like, well, have the people leave him from the hell alone and let him chill out, you know? And I understand why they were trying so hard because he was on a busy highway. They didn't want him to get in the highway. And then, you know, people are confrontational whether they realize it or not, they're not giving calming signals. So Jim talks about calming signals on his webpage one of the things that you don't want to do, even, even like friends, dogs, new dogs that you never met, you never want to face them. Face them face on, right? You don't want to look them in the eye. You're challenging them. You don't want to hover over them, stand over them. So I could hear Jason in the background barking, and it was a, you know, like a stay away from me bark or whatever. And I could hear this guy giving directions
jme:to like, to encircle him.
Pate:Yes. And I'm like, and I told Brenda, I'm like, tell him to back off. They mean well, but they are freaking him out. That is what that barking is, is Jason was telling them,
jme:I'm freaking out. Stay away.
Pate:Leave me alone. He was giving them all the communication and, they just weren't not listening. And I drove down there and lo and behold, it's not a German shepherd. It's an Akita. And I'm like, Oh, I'm like, okay, people back the fuck off because seriously, this is not how you approach an Akita. Right. And fortunately someone was there that. had their lunch and they had greasy fried chicken. And, that is like a great way to win a dog over. He was up in the Blackberry. Bushes and I'm like great. So I got stabbed quite a few times While I went up there to him, but when I went up there to him, I didn't look him in the eye I did a lot of yawns and eye aversion where I just like glance at him out of the side of my eye I approached him sideways I sat on that hill and With these stupid blackberries poking me, but I sat below him, you know, and then I inched up so that we were kind of side by side. And then, I threw someone's fried chicken, I threw, bits and pieces of it to him, once he'd calmed down and was ignoring me, not panting so hard. And not threatened by me and like we sat there for a few Brenda had told the people, you know, like we got this you can leave The lady who was eating the fried chicken stayed because she was I guess curious to see what would happen
jme:she wanted her lunch.
Pate:She no, no, she was done cuz she'd eaten So gross, I don't like to feel meat.
jme:No, but this is a good trick because just stop by any gas station and grab the greasy chicken things and then that's probably one of the best things that it will attract.
Pate:Cause it's so smelly. Yeah. And it's greasy. I don't know why but that grease, like, smell is a little bit more pungent. Yeah. And that's a great way to teach recall, by the way. If you're hiking, um, every car's horn sounds a little bit different. Um, so if you have Kentucky Fried Chicken or whatever, And you train your dogs to come back, and then they run to the car after you honk. Obviously don't start it out in the woods, but, uh, when they start, and then when they get in the car, when they recall from the honk, you give them fried chicken. And that's the only time you ever give them fried chicken.
jme:Yeah, you do have to make it special. You can't give it to them all the time.
Pate:So they know when they go in the car with that honk, they're getting fried chicken.
jme:Well, and you told me it took about two hours to get Jason. And clearly most people are not gonna have the patience for that. And most people would give up. Besides sitting kind of with your back to him or kind of sideways?
Pate:Yeah, it started with the back and then I scooted up a little bit more and then sideways.
jme:And then laying down can help because they're like, why are you laying down?
Pate:Yeah, are you hurt?
jme:It's scary with a dog that you don't know, but often laying down they're just like, Huh, maybe I'll go see what's going on.
Pate:Right, and if you're looking at a dog, like don't try it with an Akita. But, you know, like sometimes Little dogs. are lost, right? And if you lay down, I mean, if you stumble and fall and lay down, they'll be like, oh, what just happened? But yeah, with big dogs, you really don't want to lay down. But yeah, bribery works really well. With Jason, the chicken worked and first I tossed it to him and then let him eat out of my hand. Obviously not right away. And then after he was eating out of my hand, then we introduce a slip lead. And then once we got the slip lead, I mean, he obviously backed up and was like, Oh hell no. And I was like, Oh no, here, I have some more chicken. He's like, okay. And then when we got down to the car,
jme:well, but you end up kind of feeding them, holding up the leash in a big loop and feeding them through the hole.
Pate:Yeah. Multiple times.
jme:So that there, yeah. Don't try to catch them on the first one. Feed them through the loop. It's like muzzle training. And then, then you will lasso them.
Pate:Right, yeah. Like first you just have the slip lead in your hand with the chicken. And then, and then he's like, oh look at that leash with the chicken, you know. And then you can get your other hand in up. So it's a process, it's not like. You know, let's just go
jme:and if you go too fast, then they're gonna know what you're gonna do Mm hmm, and you're more likely to lose then
Pate:you get that one chance.
jme:Yeah, you know, so build that trust first So before I did Motley Zoo, there was a little dog that went to a new foster and same thing. They just, she ran out the door or they just had her in the front yard or something. And, she was gone for a month.
Pate:You know what? Dog on Seattle has had a dog missing since November and they just had a sighting.
jme:Wow. Yeah. So there were sightings. I went looking every day. But, you know, after a few weeks, you're like, okay, I guess this dog is gone. And she was found almost ten miles away, maybe not quite.
Pate:Wow.
jme:Across highways, still dragging the leash.
Pate:What?
jme:Yeah, and the reason she was found is because the leash got caught between the boards of someone's deck. And so she was stuck. And they could not approach her. But they were able to I don't know if they took a picture and blew it up of the tag so they could figure out where she was from and they called the number and, I went to the place. It took me half an hour, you know, of sitting down, feeding treats, slowly moving across the deck towards her and, you know, by that time then she was like, okay, she trusted me and I thought, oh, how am I going to get her in the car? She jumped right in the car. She was like, oh, yeah. But they were like, wow, like that was a process and I was like, yeah, it is a process. And you can't,
Pate:especially if you're the stranger, not the parent.
jme:Yeah, and you can't be too hasty about it. So not a lot of people are gonna spend two hours, you know doing that. I will admit I would get a little tired and frustrated. Two hours. Yeah, and yeah.
Pate:Yeah. I mean, I can't believe that one lady stayed and watched me sit.
jme:Sometimes people get invested. Yeah. They want to see how it turns out, but yeah, not many people have two hours to just sit and watch.
Pate:Yeah, I know. And there's other things I did in between that time, you know, to show that I wasn't a threat. I talk a lot, I might sing. I sing a lot, not, I mean, and it's great, for the dogs because they don't judge me, because I'm sure I'm flat a lot.
jme:Well, and why does yawning work? Why don't you explain that?
Pate:Yawning? It's actually dog language. So, that is what another dog is going to do for another dog. Sometimes, well, and the thing is sometimes they're stress yawning, right? Jason was stress yawning at me. But I wasn't stress yawning at him.
jme:And they often go, it was make that like, you know, noise.
Pate:It's a really, yeah. And then at the end, and then they like str their stress yawns are so, like, it's really wide. Mm-hmm They're like, oh my god.
jme:Lip licking is also also another sign of stress.
Pate:Yep. And, uh, but yeah, but if you just yawn a little bit. I'm gonna yaw. What are you talking about with a yawn Um, not a halfway yawn but definitely not a full mouth yawn. Yeah. Because that's more of a stressed yawn. Right? And that just signals to them that there's really nothing to really be worried about. I mean, it's just, it's a chill day. It's, it's okay. Let's take a nap. It's basic dog language. So you were talking to them in their language when you do the yawning, when you do the aversion. If you see dogs greet each other appropriately, it's not face to face.
jme:Nose to nose.
Pate:Yeah, it's definitely not nose to nose. It could be, I mean, I wasn't like going towards his ass, but you'll see sometimes they go sideways, right? And then that's what you want to do with them.
jme:Or they do the butt sniffing around.
Pate:Yeah. Which, you know,
jme:we're not going to do that.
Pate:No, but we'll do the sideways approach. And when you get on their level and you'll see like a dog. If they're wanting to instigate play and they're showing they're not a threat or whatever, you'll see the play bow where they get lower than the other dog. They're like, hey,
jme:which is different than cowering and whale eye, which is like when their eyes are, you can see the whites of their eyes, or they're really stiff. Yep. And their mouth is closed and their squinty. Well, and for Jason, that's how he looks like all the time. I mean, as an Akita, he just looks like he's like, staring you down and, and gonna kill you with his eyes. So
Pate:it's a teddy bear.
jme:He's a big teddy bear. And, it took a little while for us to know him and trust him.
Pate:Well, it took strangers and took a while for him to trust anyone. I mean, I was the only one. In his trust circle because I got him off the highway, but you know, no one else could touch him.
jme:And I will say too, this was when we were so full and we really couldn't take another dog in we tried to go through the normal channels of animal control. Right. And they were pretty much like he's probably going to get euthanized if he comes here.
Pate:Yeah, because he's an Akita and he's not going to do well and they don't have the experience or the, capacity to, you know, to work with a dog like that. They'll consider him a challenging breed and he'll probably bite someone because, you know, they've got the volunteers, that don't have the experience to read a dog.
jme:No, and if you get 72 hours to gauge a dog's behavior before they're euthanized, like, that's not gonna work.
Pate:I don't think they give them that long. I mean, I don't, I mean, I don't think, think they give them that short, do they?
jme:72 hours is the stray hold.
Pate:Oh, stray hold, yeah. Well, okay. In Washington. He didn't even go to the stray hold.
jme:Well, what they did was they let us do the 72 hour stray hold. On our property, which isn't normal, that doesn't usually happen, and we were trying to reunite him with his family, and it turned out they didn't want him.
Pate:Oh, that was sketch.
jme:Yeah, it was really weird. So, We were like, okay, fine. Now we're committed to this dog and you know, so we committed to training him and now he's so well behaved that when adopters come, they realize that their dog's a big mess and they want to trade us a Jason for their dog.
Pate:Well, cause Jason's well behaved or whatever. And then they realize that their dog may. May not approach the way that Jason has been taught to approach and that yeah
jme:That they're gonna cause the problem. Well, and you know, Jason really likes the ladies So it's either someone with no other Akita's someone with a female Akita or a female dog Yeah, yeah, or
Pate:because his best friend right now is that his two best friends are because he does better with the ladies is a husky mix and then this little toy dog, you know, from Hawaii, toy dog terrier mix and she's
jme:30 pounds.
Pate:Yeah, 35 or something like that, but she's all muscle. But yeah, they're best friends. So he's really good with those girls. So he can be in a home with another dog Preferably a female.
jme:Well, we know we've had him for two years, which is not Any kind of reflection of him either.
Pate:No, not at all.
jme:It's that we're not going to put him in a home that isn't exactly right for him.
Pate:Or capable of handling that breed.
jme:Yeah, and we're not going to give him to a first time dog person. That's not a good idea. He's not a first time dog dog. No. And so.
Pate:Just because he has a strong personality, right?
jme:Well, I mean, Akitas are aloof, independent. These are some qualities. That's why they make good guard dogs. That's what they've been bred to do.
Pate:Well, American Akitas. Yeah. The Japanese Akitas aren't as.
jme:They're still pretty fiercely loyal.
Pate:They're fiercely loyal, but they're not, I don't want to say aggressive because I hate using that word, but the American Akitas. They're a harder dog than the Japanese Akita's because the Japanese Akita's they're sweeter, right? Have, have we heard about Hachi? Y'all should look into Hachi, but I mean, Japanese Akita's are, Sweet dogs normally,
jme:well, and we had Astro at daycare, who was like the biggest, he was so not an Akita, Akita,
Pate:he's a Japanese Akita. Yeah.
jme:Yeah. But then Haley, his new younger sister, very different.
Pate:Yeah.
jme:And she would get standoffish and barky at us in the same day. Even when she knew us,
Pate:50 first dates.
jme:Yeah, if you took her off leash, you would have trouble getting her back on leash, even in the daycare room. So.
Pate:Anyway, that was a total digression.
jme:Yeah. Okay, so what about finding a cat? If you find one on your porch or something like that if we're not trapping it, what would, what would you try and do?
Pate:If we're not trapping it, get it in the house.
jme:Lead it in the house with some food?
Pate:Yeah, I was going to say, is this cat approachable or not? Yeah. Cause if it's not approachable, most likely you're going to have to trap it. If it is approachable, a lot of family pet cats that are out and about some may act feral, but some may be like, Oh my God, it's so cold and I'm so hungry. Can I please come inside?
jme:This is why cats have like three families sometimes. Outdoor cats.
Pate:And then that way it's easy. Just put them in your bathroom. Figure out what the scenario is. Go look on social media. Cause you know, those lost dogs, lost cats, whatever. It's not just loss. It's like, Hey, I found somebody, you know, we've had to do that a few times. And we've fortunately been able to find the owners or the owners have found us. Because of our post that we found their dog.
jme:I know one of the times the reason the cat got away from us was the crate fell apart
Pate:Yeah, it was yeah because yeah that did happen to us
jme:so when you're carrying a new cat especially a new cat It's better to you know Carry the crate and then cradle it with your other arm underneath so that the crate doesn't fall apart. Yeah. Or put some zip ties through the little holes before you do transports or, you know, take it outta there.
Pate:No, it, it is best just to light football it. Mm-hmm
jme:But don't crush it.'cause then it can, the door can pop off or whatever, but that is how one of the, the cats got away and we never did find
Pate:two.
jme:Yep. So and
Pate:we found one.
jme:We found one and we didn't find the other. I remember too, there was another story with one of our fosters and the kitten was like eight weeks old and they had it in the yard with them and they turned around and it was gone. Yeah, and they didn't tell us that the cat went missing. Yeah, and they looked for it and after three days They told us the foster cat was missing and that was a kitten an eight week old kitten in their yard So like you just can't trust that and especially if you're fostering for an organization, don't do that Just don't take them outside. Yeah, and then one of the other cats Did she push the screen out? She was a mom cat and she had kittens.
Pate:She pushed the screen out.
jme:She pushed the screen out and went out. But didn't she do it twice? Because they didn't fix the problem in the first place.
Pate:No, no, no. So the first time she got out doing the screen, and fortunately, she had kittens. So they were able to play the recording of the kittens, like really loud. Kittens in distress, right? And then the mom comes barreling back in. And then after they fixed that screen in the window, It was summer. So it was kind of toasty, right? And, so they left the door open. Like their sliding glass door open. And she got out.
jme:And we found her again. And then we took the and then we took them away. Because they're
Pate:like, dude, not the third time is not the charm. In this case, she's going to be gone.
jme:Yeah. So when I was younger, my first cat, so I was probably 20 years old. They were indoor cats, and my boyfriend at the time, his brother, was moving out, and I didn't know this. It was very sudden. He left the door open, and my cat, Hex, got out. And I was crying, I was so mad. Curses was a little bit more shy, and so she didn't explore, but Hex was very exploratory. And after about three days, I started to worry. This was back in the days before social media, so I put an ad in the newspaper and I ran that I had every day for a month, but after about two weeks, people stopped asking me if my cat came back like they were just like she's not coming back and I didn't want to accept that. So every day for about 30 days, I ran this ad and I realized I let it lapse and I was like, I guess I'll just try for one more week. And the next day someone called me and they had found her like 10 miles away.
Pate:That's crazy.
jme:And She just kind of collapsed in their arms, and they had, you know, kind of put her up in their shed or whatever. Right. And I saw her and I just, I started bawling. So what we think happened
Pate:You cry a lot. You've been, you've been crying a lot in this episode.
jme:Well, because that's my baby. I never had a pet like that before. I had one cat and my mom made me Leave him with her when I moved out and I missed him so much and so my boyfriend got me the two cats for Christmas and you know, I just I had never experienced this before so I was so glad I had her back and she was not very nice to curses when she came back and the next morning There was a door in our kitchen that went to the roof. It was not really a deck. It was just a flat roof. I opened the door, and Hex was on the outside. And I was like, What the heck? You just came back? How did you do that? The brother had left the window open.
Pate:Oh, bloody hell.
jme:In his room, and she jumped down onto the eve. And I was like, you didn't learn anything.
Pate:No, they don't. They don't.
jme:So, yeah, she was very exploratory, but after that we had to be very, very careful because she was really curious. Right. And, you know, once a cat goes out, often they get more curious and they want to keep going again. So it's better not to introduce them to that world. Yeah. At all.
Pate:Well, unless you have a catio, because they can still explore outside and, you know, get the things. Yeah. And then, right. Watch the butterflies. It's great. If you had like a hummingbird thing for them to see, for them to engage. Right. But also protect. Yeah. Safety wise. Like my cats are. They're indoor only, but they do have a catio scenario. And there they have a little window and a, yeah, a ramp that goes out to like a, yeah. And a closed ramp. Mm-hmm They go down to the little Cady. Yeah. Window ledge. Like little. Yeah. Well, yeah.'cause we have the window ledge right outside the bathroom. And then we have a doggy door. So it goes out the bathroom around the house, down into like a little. You know, little, what, five by five? Like, yeah, like, almost like a large kennel. Right. And, um. But just enough for them to explore. Exactly. And they're quite happy, um, doing that. They haven't, they'll be outside, they'll be outside all day long if they could. But we have not lost them, because they've had, they've got their outdoor fix, I guess, you know.
jme:Probably the last thing we can talk about, to wrap this up is, people, they want to do GPS colors or, Apple tags,
Pate:air tags,
jme:So our first. bit of advice is don't lose your dog. Don't lose your dog. No, really. Like if your dog is wandering, putting a GPS color on them shouldn't make you feel better you need to stop them wandering, right?
Pate:Well, not just that, but people can you please stop thinking it's okay just to let your dog out the front door to go piss and shit. In the neighborhood and then come back because one day they're not coming back and it's happened so many times and I'm sorry that's so damn lazy of you. Just put your dog on a leash, go outside and walk it or you know, if you, that's for the ones who don't have a yard or maybe they have a yard and they just want them to go out in the front door. I don't understand it.
jme:Going back to what you said about using the Flexi Leash, the only application of using the Flexi Leash would be a situation like that. Clip the Flexi Leash to your dog's collar, have it like tethered to the porch, let them go out. then they come back. Don't walk your dog on flexi leashes, please. Not at all. But this is a good way if your dog needs to wander and sniff and they take half an hour in the rain or whatever it is, do that or have a zip line.
Pate:Yeah. Like in the backyard, have a tether, a zip line tether or whatever. They don't need to go out your front door. To either be coyote food, or pave, uh, pizza pavement, or some random person grab your dog and go.
jme:The other thing about harnesses we don't like harnesses for walking, as the only form of security. If you have a harness, you should clip it to the collar too. We prefer martingale collars because those kind are really hard to escape from. Harnesses are, you can say what you want, but they are so easy to get out of most of the time. And before I had Motley's Zoo, we were at an adoption event, and I was fostering for this other group. The family adopted a dog, took it out in the parking lot, it pulled out of the harness, ran into the road, and got run over right in front of me.
Pate:Holy crap. No harnesses.
jme:Well, no. I mean And that happened actually at one of our events. One of the fosters thought they were cute and brought a harness that was really pretty and the dog got out of it in the parking lot and almost got hit. We don't like harnesses.
Pate:And that's when we started using the martingales.
jme:Exclusively. And Max and Neo, thank you Max and Neo, they donate. To organizations like ours, you can also purchase Max and Neo Martingale collars for rescues. They have a locking feature so you can lock it so that the buckle will never come apart.
Pate:You do have to put them on appropriately. Because sometimes people make them too loose.
jme:Oh yeah, it's not like jewelry.
Pate:No, yeah.
jme:It's like a high. Up as high up as you can. Yeah, and and snug.
Pate:Yeah, not nuts. I mean like two fingers, you know, like
jme:the last tip, as this has happened to a few people a few times, secure your dog when they're in the car. And teach them not to jump out of the car until
Pate:seatbelt harnesses,
jme:until you allow them to. Mm-hmm We had a foster who, I don't know she must have put the dog in the car herself, and I don't know how she didn't get the spiel or it didn't sink in or something, but we're we're really pretty good about talking to people about it. They didn't secure her and she was a super freaky deaky dog. And as soon as she got to her house, the dog jumped out, she couldn't grab the leash in time, and the dog was running down the highway. And people were stopping, thankfully, and Dawna and Miley went and got her. But it was not easy to catch her because she was super freaky deaky. I'm rethinking my statement about how infrequently this has happened to us. It's still infrequent compared to other organizations, but
Pate:Well, I mean, it's not that, we haven't had a lot of lost dogs. Well, and permanently lost, right?
jme:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pate:We've had dogs get loose. You know, and then because of these dogs that get loose, then we tighten our rules. Right?
jme:Well, we have done like two and a half episodes time with this episode.
Pate:So to wrap it up, what have we learned today about lost pets? The minute you lose your pet, you go to threeretrievers. com. You read the steps that you need to take to find your lost dog. You reach out to social media, you get those, yeah, you get those posters up. And then. You just start doing everything else on Jim's list because he has success.
jme:And we're going to do its own episode about pet technology and the GPS stuff. Just don't rely on them as an option to keep your pet safe because it's not going to keep them from running in the road. It's not going to keep a predator from hurting them. not gonna keep them safe. It's a false sense of security. You might know where they are.
Pate:I mean, it's a good backup plan, okay?
jme:It is a good backup plan.
Pate:It's not your first, um, what's it?
jme:Line of defense.
Pate:That one. Yeah, it's not your first line of defense. It's your backup plan.
jme:All right, well, we are wrapping this up, and we will have the link to Jim Branson's site and some of the information that we wrote a blog about it when Danny was found. We will link those things in our blog. What's it called? Transcript. And, and then you can check out more information there. If you want to talk to us, email us at rescueshit@motleyzoo.org. And otherwise, I'm jme.
Pate:I'm Pate. This is our podcast, Rescue Shit. Rock on.
jme:Rescue on.
