How to Find Your Lost Dog

Master Finder Onalisa Hoodes
Explains Her Tried-and-True Methods

By Margaux Lovely | June 5, 2025

It’s one of those everyone-get-in-the-car-I-don’t-care-if-you-ate-we’re-running-late types of mornings. You’re trying to find your laptop, successfully transfer coffee from the pot to the to-go mug without getting knee-swiped by the dog, who thinks all this running around is a game, and, oh wait, one of the kids forgot their history project.

With a sigh of resignation, you cut your losses and start shoving the kids out the door. The dog, still hyped up, bolts out the door in front of you, unleashed and unbound. He’s out of sight before you know it.

“People freak out and don’t know what to do when they realize the dog is gone, so that’s kind of where I step in,” Onalisa Hoodes said. “I tell them to take a step back, take a breath, and tell me what happened.”

Hoodes has been tracking, trapping, and reuniting lost dogs in Santa Barbara County for more than a decade and has a seriously impressive track record to prove it. She brings about 40 dogs per year back home and rehouses even more abandoned dogs through shelters and rescue centers, all while maintaining her day job.

“It’s such a weird niche,” Hoodes admitted.

During our conversation, she recalled instances that demonstrated her uncanny sixth sense for finding lost dogs. Once, she had nothing more than an inkling that a runaway was sleeping in a storm culvert, despite no dog sightings in the area. Hoodes decided to put a layer of flour on the ground in front of the culvert entrance, saw paw prints in it the next morning, and was able to get the dog that night.

On top of her incredible intuition, Hoodes has a unique, tried-and-true formula for getting your dog home safe and sound, and does it all without asking for anything in return.

“You shouldn’t be paying anyone to help you look for your dog,” she said. “It just takes some patience.”

That patience begins early, with Hoodes advising lost dog owners to — wait for it — not call your dog’s name when looking for them.

“Even if you’re going to go look for your dog, don’t go out screaming the dog’s name with a bunch of random people,” said Hoodes. “I know it sounds counterintuitive, but something is misfiring when they’re lost, so the more you scream at them and have a big party looking, the more likely they are to feel like prey and keep running.”

Hoodes also advises filing a lost dog report at the closest animal shelter while she works the social media channels. Furthermore, Santa Barbara County Animal Services recently unveiled a Lost & Found Pet Map connected to the social media platform Nextdoor, where community members can report lost and found pets and possible sightings.

The next step is far more intuitive than her anti-search-party suggestion — big, brightly colored signs.

“Signs are your eyes and ears,” Hoodes said. “We do strategic sign-posting, like in right-hand turn lanes, or where people are coming to a stop.”

Most owners are frantic at this point so Hoodes has pre-made signs that she gives to them, instructing community members to call with any sightings, day or night. All the owners have to do is add their phone number and a photo of their pet.

“For intense dog searches, we keep a log and write down every single sighting,” she explained. “Then, we drop pins on a Google Map for each sighting, color coding them by the day. After dogs are out for about three days, they start forming a pattern and returning to the same spots.”

With that pattern in mind, Hoodes instructs owners to create a “scent trail” and feeding station to keep the dog in the area and possibly lure them home.

“Normally, the dog is most bonded to you or a dog sibling,” Hoodes said. “If it’s you, then you get the dirtiest, smelliest thing you have, like the pillowcase you’ve been sleeping on for days, or dirty laundry. If it’s another dog, we’ve used their poop or a dirty towel that we rub all over them.” The smelly items are then placed in the already-mapped area and in the neighborhood around your home.

“Very often, dogs will just show up in the middle of the night because they smell home,” she said.

“Signs are your eyes and ears,” said Onalisa Hoodes. “We do strategic sign-posting,
like in right-hand turn lanes, or where people are coming to a stop.”

But, Hoodes cautioned, don’t leave tons of food and water out for your pet. “Filling their bellies up means they won’t come out to look for food,” she said. Instead, feeding stations with a small amount of kibble can keep the dog coming back until you can get them safely inside.

In extreme cases, Hoodes has trained herself to use enclosed coyote traps. The traps require 24-hour supervision to ensure other animals don’t go in, and Hoodes conducts these multi-day searches with pride. “Every trap I’ve set, the dog has gone into,” she said.

“It’s primarily new shelter dogs that we end up trapping since they’re so skittish,” Hoodes said. “Other times, it’s dogs that have been abandoned or are just strays.”

As such, Hoodes stressed the importance of adopting dogs instead of going the “designer dog” route through a breeder. “The shelters are way over capacity right now,” she emphasized. “All dogs deserve a second chance.”

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How to Find Your Lost Dog