A look at the experience of losing or finding a pet — and what to do if it happens to you
Irma Shute could never have imagined the pain of losing a dog until it happened to her family.
On the day after Christmas, Shute’s young beagle, Milo, was playing in the yard as usual when he dug under the fence and escaped. Shute and her husband began searching for Milo immediately, posting flyers all over Macon and on various websites.
They checked local shelters repeatedly to see if Milo had been brought in. Shute trekked the same route on foot every morning looking for any indication of his whereabouts, then spent her evenings following leads from phone calls and online posts. Despite the family’s efforts, it’s been four months and Milo is still missing.
“It’s so hard,” Shute said. “When you walk that eight miles in the sun looking for him as cars go whooshing by, you can feel so alone.”
Still, Shute has not given up her search. She continues to field calls and scan nearly 20 Facebook groups on a daily basis. She suspects that someone may have found Milo and kept him, but prays that he will be returned to his rightful home. In her eyes, Milo is more like her child than a pet.
“If a kidnapper has possession of your child for five years, does that mean they should not have to return them?” Shute said.
In Georgia, animals are considered property, so keeping a found pet is legally equivalent to theft. Shute has no interest in pressing charges, though. In fact, she is offering a reward to anyone who brings Milo home. Her priority is simply to be reunited with her family member.
Macon-Bibb County Animal Welfare is the local authority responsible for handling stray and abandoned animals. Over 4,000 animals pass through the facility every year, and each one goes through the same intake process: they are scanned for a microchip, checked for other forms of identification like tags, weighed, vaccinated, evaluated for behavioral issues and photographed.
Shelter manager Tracey Belew estimates that about 50 percent of the dogs that come through the facility likely had a home at some point. But of all the animals that are taken in annually, only about 500 are returned to their owners.
“Some of them come in and they know basic commands, they have collars on, they’re healthy and happy, so you expect an owner to come get them,” Belew said. “But they never do.”
The fraction of pets that are reclaimed are typically spotted by owners on the animal welfare Facebook page or identified by microchip — but even that can be tricky.
“A lot of the time we have to hunt them down because the chip is registered to the place they got the animal from, or it’s registered to an old owner and the new owner didn’t transfer it,” Belew said. “So we have to do a lot of investigation to get to the bottom of who the owner is.”
If you find a stray animal, you are encouraged to take and post pictures of it if possible, but you shouldn’t try to catch it. You should call animal enforcement so that an officer may be dispatched in case the animal is aggressive. If you’ve already picked up the animal, you are legally required to bring it to the shelter, even if you would like to adopt it.
Belew emphasizes that the shelters of today have evolved from “the pound” of the past, and that their mission is not to harm animals. She described a recent situation where a man picked up a dog from the side of the road and brought it in so it could be scanned for a microchip, but fiercely resisted leaving the dog at the shelter even after the law was explained to him. The conflict escalated until police were called for reinforcement.
“He left, and guess what? The owner called shortly after,” Belew said.
Once an animal has been through the intake process and its photo is posted online, the shelter will hold it for seven days. After that period expires, the animal becomes property of the county and the finder is welcome to come back and adopt it.
That’s why Belew urges owners of missing pets to check in with the shelter at least once per week. She also recommends posting current photos on Facebook, then sharing them with the Macon-Bibb Animal Welfare page so that the shelter can boost the message to the community and keep an eye out for the pet. PawBoost.com is another website where people can post information about lost and found pets, which Belew says has made a huge impact.
Most importantly, owners should ensure that their pet is microchipped and the information is up to date.
But what should an owner do if their pet has been lost for months, like Milo?
“We have animals reunited years after they’ve gone missing. It could be that someone else picked them up and could never find the owner, and the dog got loose and we got it. Or sometimes they’re just roaming for that long,” Belew said. “I always say never give up. Keep checking once a week, because you never know.”
