Community Corner

Organization Aims to Reunite Dogs With Their Owners

Lost Dogs Illinois, founded in December 2010, has helped reunite almost 4,000 dogs with their owners.

When two of her dogs went missing from two different veterinarian clinics just two months apart, Susan Taney panicked.

"Even though I knew what to do, I was in a panic," said Taney, who is part of a Beagle rescue that has a dog recovery team. "I could not think straight."

Thanks to her fellow Beagle rescue friends who came down from Wisconsin to help, she got both of her dogs back.

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"We thought, there's really nothing out there (to help people)," said Taney. She and her friends decided to start a Facebook page in Wisconsin to help reunite owners with their lost dogs—dubbed Lost Dogs of Wisconsin—and just 10 months later, in December 2010, Lost Dogs Illinois was born.

"We wanted to be able to provide resources and tools to owners of lost dogs to empower them," Taney said of the not-for-profit charity organization, which she is the director of. "And we wanted to empower people who find dogs. They don't know what to do when they find dogs. They have misperceptions that the dog has been dumped, but the dog could have been missing for months."

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Since it was founded, Lost Dogs Illinois has reunited nearly 4,000 dogs with their owners.

"And that's thanks to our fans, a lot of it," said Taney. "We have fans that are just fantastic. I mean, they're terrific. They're watching all of these different Internet sites, Facebook pages, Craigslist, newspaper ads - and they're trying to match up dogs."

Lost Dogs Illinois offers both a website and a Facebook page that includes photos of lost or found dogs, contact information for the owner or finder, and tips on what to do if a dog goes missing.

If an owner's dog goes missing, he or she can visit the Facebook page or the Lost Dogs Illinois website to fill out a form. Once the form is submitted, the owner can use templates on the website to create a Lost Dog (or Found Dog, if that's the case) flier. The fliers are also available in Spanish, Taney said.

The site also offers a wealth of other information, including a lost dog action plan and strategies for dealing with a friendly or shy lost dog.

The Lost Dogs Illinois Facebook page has 34,115 fans who, as soon as a new photo of a missing or found dog is posted, comment with encouraging words and share the posts with others. Taney said Lost Dogs Illinois also has 25 volunteers who perform a variety of tasks, from collecting the lost/found dog reports to posting them on the organization's website or on Facebook. Other volunteers monitor Craigslist to keep an eye out for reports of found dogs that may match the ones that have been reported missing.

"Since I have lived this, it means a lot," Taney said of Lost Dogs Illinois. She said it's nice to see that people are changing their views on dogs they find and not just looking at such dogs as having been dumped or abandoned. "People are realizing that these lost dogs are someone's pet. People are making that effort to find the family. It makes me feel really good."

There have been some great success stories, Taney said. Recently, a Yorkie that went missing from Gurnee was found after three weeks. Another Yorkie that was found in Grayslake was reunited with her family after more than two years. The family had been living in Chicago but eventually moved to Cleveland; the dog was reunited thanks to her microchip. Taney added that another recent reunion involved a Saint Bernard-Lab mix that had been missing for a year and was reunited with its family.

Taney said it's important that people keep a couple of things in mind when they lose or find a dog. If they find a dog, the finder should approach the dog is a calm and quiet manner, getting down to the dog's level if possible because "it's a non-threatening position," Taney said.

"Every time a shy dog or a timid dog gets chased or called or approached, that just reinforces their fear of humans," said Taney. "It just keeps building that wall up. And we also don't want people to chase a dog out into traffic."

And if a dog goes missing, the owner should not just use Facebook to spread the word, Taney said.

"It's a tool to get the message out, but not everybody has a computer, and not everybody who has a computer is on Facebook," said Taney. "You're missing a whole lot of people if you only use Facebook. You have to market your lost dog. You have to let people know there's a family looking for that lost dog."


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