Missing Pets

There are various ways of aiding your beloved pet get back home via communication.

There are what we call "trackers", these are communicators that track the missing pets from the point where they went missing from, and then there are communicators who ask questions about landmarks, how the area feels, sounds and smells.

I am not a tracker, but I have found that my method has often brought pets home, or has taken the owner to the point of what they can see where they have been - and sometimes where they are.

The longer an animal has been missing, the harder it becomes to find them. Ideally searching should begin withing the first 24 hours. The other challenge with missing pets is that they often move around, which is why missing pet communication can be extremely challenging. The longer the pet has been missing is also a factor, along with the challenges that the pet will face when making it's way back home (dogs, traffic, etc.). The pet can often describe where they escaped from, what they have seen on the way or where they currently are.

An animal cannot be forced to go home, I can only act as a guide to help the animal, look at the surroundings, see the circumstances of how the animal went missing.

I personally use the "Question & Answer" method, where I keep asking them questions about what route they took, what they see, smell, hear and feel, the circumstances of how they went missing and then speaking to the parent about the decision that need to be made of how to proceed.

Most often I send cats home, back to where they came from by guiding them home - this usually does not work with dogs. Or in some recent cases, we know that the pet has been taken away from the area completely and the pet has told me that they feel safe. In these cases, I always caution the parents against telling the pet to make it's way home, because this can be extremely dangerous if they have been taken far away from their home. This is where the normal search methods would be best.

I cannot give names, specific addresses or other information that is of no use to an animal - such as a street name or house number. As well as describe different view points of a house if the animal has never seen it.

In the end, a communicator can only do so much in aiding the animal in finding their way home, or be found by the pet parent. It is crucial that the pet parent still carry on looking the way one would normally look for a missing pet by putting up flyers, calling all veterinarians and physically going to shelters in the direct and neighbouring areas as well as posting missing ads all over social media.

I have also found that putting a beam of light around the home and putting the light straight up in the air serves as a beacon for a pet to aim for when finding their way home. But the success of this depends on how long a pet has been missing.

In some cases, the animal is not aware, or has not accepted that they have crossed over. This is where my #1 rule comes in - I will never ever tell a person whether a pet is still alive or dead. The reason for this is that a person can become extremely frantic and overwhelmed by hearing the pet is still alive, or they can completely give up if you say the pet is dead. Giving false hope can be torture.