Is your missing dog staying in one area but reluctant to enter a humane trap? “Helpful” neighbors may be overfeeding your dog and undermining your efforts to successfully catch him. Lost dogs in survival mode need to be hungry enough to take the risk to enter a humane trap. An overfed dog has little incentive to enter the trap and may contentedly live for months or even years in a neighborhood without ever letting anyone catch them. Cutting off the other food sources will greatly increase your chances of catching him.
If you suspect your dog is being overfed or is being chased by neighbors, we suggest printing and distributing the flyer below. Of course, you will need to edit the text to suit your situation. Use a word program to retype the flyer with text and add a photo.
We have found that educating and informing the neighborhood that a recovery effort is in progress will help get them onboard with your plans. You may only need to print ten or twenty of these – just enough to distribute in the immediate area where your dog is hanging around. Just to clarify: this flyer should NOT be distributed via social media, only by hand to the surrounding neighbors. Otherwise you risk attracting too many curiousity seekers and wanna-be heroes to the location. To create a flyer to distribute via social media please visit our software partner at www.helpinglostpets.com
And a happy update – Raven the dog pictured in our flyer was successfully caught once they used the flyer to cut off the other food sources and inform the neighbors of their plan. Remember, never give out the exact location of the trap or feeding station. You don’t want curiousity seekers to drive your dog out of the area. Don’t forget to update the neighbors when your dog is caught! Your success will motivate them to educate others on how to successfully capture a shy, lost dog.
Read more about humane trapping in our series of articles here.