Monica Young knows what it feels like when a dog goes missing.
Fifteen years ago, while vacationing on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, her 5-year-old basset hound, Bullett, got away. Luckily, after 22 hours, he came back on his own.
“I didn’t like how that felt,” she said. “It was a nightmare, really.”
That memory is part of what drives Young, 53, a retired Burrell elementary school teacher, to volunteer her help to find lost dogs.
“I begged God to give me another purpose, and he gave me this, and the people to do it with,” she said.
Young, who lives in Lower Burrell, connected with Harrison couple Andy and Bobbi McGuire to form their Dog Gone? business. They help to recover lost dogs within a 20-mile radius of Natrona Heights, for which they never charge, and offer a variety of related information and resources on their Facebook page.
They’ve been working together regularly for nearly two years, during which they have found 43 dogs.
People find them through Facebook and word of mouth, Young said. Or, when they see a report of a lost dog, Andy McGuire said they’ll offer their help and advice.
Andy McGuire, 54, works for Bayer while Bobbi McGuire, 52, is retired from the company.
Andy McGuire said they got involved in finding lost dogs after helping to look for Shadow, a 4-year-old pit bull-boxer mix that went missing after running away from a car crash in Harrison in 2022. Shadow was found seven days later near Highlands Middle School.
“We do it because we love animals,” he said.
McGuire said the crash experience motivated him to buy traps. They now have four traps and seven trail cameras.
To capture dogs, they use what is known as a Missy Trap, named for a former puppy mill dog that was captured after refusing to enter a conventional trap. Able to be made to whatever size is needed and baited with food, it includes a sensor beam that, when broken, will close the door. They monitor their traps with the trail cameras.
Because their traps are placed in areas where the dogs were last seen, they rely heavily on sightings, McGuire said.
When there is a sighting, they will first place food and a camera in that area. If the dog is seen eating there, they’ll place a trap.
Successfully trapping a lost dog can take hours or days.
“It depends on the dog,” Young said.
Their traps also have caught other animals, including feral cats, raccoons and possums — but no skunks so far, fortunately.
“We have to watch the cameras around the clock,” Young said. “We don’t want to leave any animal in there for any amount of time.”
They had been part of the recent effort to capture Storm and Baby, two sheep that ran away from their home in Plum. Their owner, Rick Borowski, contacted them, Bobbi McGuire said. It was the first time they were asked to find something other than a dog.
“We figured, why not? What do we have to lose?” Young said.
They placed one of their traps and cameras in the area of a sighting along the Allegheny River in Lower Burrell. All it caught was a deer lured in by the bait of corn — Borowski saw it on the trail camera positioned across from the cage and released the deer.
After three weeks on the run, Storm was captured Oct. 7 in Brackenridge Memorial Park, while Baby was found Oct. 9 at Hill Crest Country Club in Lower Burrell.
Part of the advice the trio gives expands on the idea of “do not chase” and “do not approach.” Young explained that when a dog gets away from its home, it goes into survival mode, where all it cares about is food, water, shelter and safety. They see everything, and everyone, as a predator.
“They don’t recognize their owners in survival mode,” she said. “They become a wild animal.”
They advise owners to not call out their dog’s name because the animal will think it’s in trouble, Bobbi McGuire said. While they know it’s difficult for owners, they tell them to stay away from search areas and let them handle it.
They give owners access to their cameras.
Lost dogs will travel in a circle that gets bigger the longer they are loose. The longer they go without finding a way home, they become scared and confused, Andy McGuire said.
“This takes a lot of study of animal behavior,” Young said. “We learn more and more. Every case is different.”
Prevention is what McGuire said they encourage.
“It’s so much easier than hoping you find them after they get lost,” he said. “There’s no guarantees.”
They recently got scanners to check dogs for implanted identification microchips. Young said they are looking to get a thermal drone to help in their searches, once they save enough money to buy one.
“It’s going to be a long time before we get that,” she said. “That will really change our game.”
While they don’t look for missing people, Young shares posts about them on Facebook.
“When you have rescue in your heart, no matter what you see that needs found, you do that, even if it’s just sharing a post,” Young said.
Brian C. Rittmeyer is a TribLive reporter covering news in New Kensington, Arnold and Plum. A Pittsburgh native and graduate of Penn State University’s Schreyer Honors College, Brian has been with the Trib since December 2000. He can be reached at brittmeyer@triblive.com.
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
