As I’m relaxing on this July 4th with Lilo laying at my feet, I’m reflecting on the day that Lilo went missing a year ago in Clifton, VA. It is easily the worst day and experience of my life; I can still feel the sadness and the anger of not having Lilo. Sometimes, I can’t think about it too hard because it really can bring me to tears. But, even though that experience was extremely sad, we also felt the love and support of our friends and our family; we were never alone in the nightmare we lived for those 12 days.
Yes, you read that number correctly. Lilo was missing for 12 days! In this post, I’ll provide top 10 tips for when your pet goes missing, but first I’ll start with the story.
On June 29, 2019, Jesse and I were at a friend’s wedding. We left Lilo with Jesse’s parents. It was a beautiful day out and we had a blast at this wedding. At 10PM, we received a text that Lilo ran away. In a second, I went from having the time of my life to feeling like my heart was ripped out of my chest. I fell to my knees and started sobbing. I was convinced I would never see her again. We raced home and once we got there, we were so angry and upset we weren’t thinking straight. If I regret anything that happened during that time, it was the way we reacted towards his parents who meant no harm at all. We ran around the neighborhood, screaming for Lilo. It was pitch black and I couldn’t even process where she could’ve gone. Did she run further into the neighborhood? Did she run on the highway? Is she even alive?
We found out before we received the text, she was already missing for five hours. Jesse’s parents took her for a walk outside in the backyard after we left to head to the wedding and as they were trying to give her water because it was hot outside, Lilo freaked out, pulled out of her harness and ran. For those five hours before they told us, they were looking for her around the neighborhood and even called the police. It came to the point where they had to tell us because they couldn’t find her.
We didn’t even know where to start looking for her. Jesse and I were both unfamiliar with the area because we never walked around the neighborhood, and we didn’t realize how big the community is. We did everything we could to find her. We printed out a bunch of fliers and put them practically all over town, we hired a dog sniffing company, we paid for alerts that get sent to people’s phones and emails, we wrote on all the local missing dogs Facebook groups, we went to the vets in the area to see if anyone dropped her off and we drove around every morning and every night. Every night before going to bed, I would cry because I felt so defeated. And, what made matters worse, everyday it was over 90 degrees, there were thunderstorms, and there were so many fireworks leading up to and on 4th of July. I really thought there’s no way she could be alive.
It finally came to the point where we had to go back to NY. I was dreading the day we had to make that decision because I felt like we were giving up on Lilo. How could we continue living our lives when our baby was out in the wild by herself? But, we had to move on. We were going back to a new, bigger apartment that we got because we wanted to give Lilo more space without Lilo.
On the 3rd day being back at home, I was doing work at my desk (during this time we were working from home) and Jesse came into the living room saying he got several calls from neighbors that saw Lilo walking around in the early morning! All I could think was “HOLY SHIT, SHE’S ALIVE!” We didn’t hesitate to book a bus back to VA for that evening. Even though we were heading to VA many hours after Lilo was spotted, knowing she was alive gave us so much hope. She never left the area and she was fine! A neighbor sent us a video from his backyard camera and she was rolling in the grass by herself, exactly the way she does right now when she’s having fun.
We got to VA around 10PM. We asked Jesse’s brother if we could use his goldendoodles to see if they could bring Lilo out and we had the backup plan of using bacon in the morning to draw her out as well. We decided to take a chance and walk one more time that night to see if maybe she was out and to figure out where we should start in the morning. We were walking for about 3 minutes and I heard Jesse say, calmly, “There she is, she’s across the street.” And there she was. Casually walking as if nothing was wrong. We called her name quietly, but she looked very confused. It was pitch black so she didn’t recognize us and ran off. We decided that Jesse would continue walking with the dogs, while his mom and I go back to the house to get Lilo’s harness and a toy. As we were coming back, I got a call from Jesse saying that he got her! I have never felt so relieved in my life! When I saw them, I jumped out of the car and you could tell Lilo was so happy to be back with her parents. Surprisingly enough, I did not cry when I saw her. I was just so relieved we had her and our lives could go back to normal.
“How did you grab her!?” I asked Jesse. It’s impossible to catch this dog. He went on to tell us that when we went back to the house, Lilo came out again because she was interested in the goldendoodles (who she has spent a lot of time with before). But, they lunged at her and she ran back into the woods. As Jesse was walking around, she came back out again but ran past him. He yelled “STAY!” and one thing she does extremely well when we tell her, is stay. As she was frozen in her spot, Jesse sat on the grass and shined the cellphone light in his face. Lilo recognized it was her dad and ran right into his arms! It was the sweetest story I’ve ever heard!
So, here are my top 10 tips when your pet goes missing:
- Do not freak out! This took away so much precious time from us by freaking out, panicking, and getting angry. Instead, we should have sprung into action by posting on Facebook groups, creating fliers and coming up with a game plan on how we’re going to find her. Since we were delayed in putting up fliers the next day, neighbors told us they saw her earlier in the morning but didn’t know who to call.
- Report your missing pet to a pet amber alert service. A lot of people are subscribed to these alerts that are sent out to cell phones and email addresses. This helped spread the word of Lilo missing faster, so we had a lot of eyes open for her.
- Post on local pet Facebook groups and NextDoor immediately. There are so many pet lovers out there that are looking out for missing pets to help the community. It’s an overwhelming group of people, but it is a great support system for the time that you need it.
- Post fliers EVERYWHERE! We covered the whole town with Lilo’s face on road signs, stores, and neighbors houses. Make sure it is a big, clear, color photo of your pet with a short description of what they look like and their personality and display your phone number clearly. Every single person in town knew who we were and had an eye out for Lilo. Even though it took 12 days for this to actually work, people knew who to call right away as soon as they saw her.
- Expect prank callers because your number will be on all the fliers. We got a prank call from a kid saying they saw Lilo and that feeling is the worst! But, your number is exposed everywhere so expect someone to mess with you and don’t get upset.
- Go to your local shelters and vets. When pets are found they are usually taken to a shelter or vet. Even when someone steals your pet, they will take them to the vet. Make sure your local shelters and vets know so they can keep an eye out for any pet that comes in.
- Take some time off! Your pet is your family member no matter what anyone tells you. Give yourself the space to process your feelings and to put in all your efforts in getting them back. Eventually we did have to go back to work, but the time we took off helped to get the word out of Lilo missing and helped process our emotions.
- This is specific to dogs: Do not hire a dog sniffer agency unless you know for sure your dog is in the area. We did this because we were desperate, but learned that the conditions need to be very specific in order for this to work. It rained so Lilo’s scent was washed away and we didn’t have a specific area for this person and her dog to start in. At the end of the day, this pulled no results and felt like a waste of time.
- Do not place blame on anyone. Unless you have really malicious people in your life, no one is trying to lose your pet or cause harm to them. At the end of the day, an animal will run away no matter what’s going on; we don’t know what they’re thinking (there are a lot of stories of dogs running away chasing after squirrels). Placing blame takes away from the energy of working together to find your pet faster.
- Don’t give up! Unless your pet is found dead in a ditch, do not lose hope or give up. Animals have the instinct to survive as long as they can, so you have to do the same for them. There are countless stories of pet owners being reunited after weeks, months even years of them getting lost. Lilo was missing for 12 days and we got our baby girl back.
A year later, I cannot believe we got her back. Our bond with Lilo is stronger than it was before and I truly believe she never wants to be alone again. Lilo loves running around outside, rolling in the grass, eating grass, and eating sticks (which I’m sure is how she managed to stay alive). We’ll never deny her the freedom to run around and enjoy the outdoors, but let’s hope she doesn’t take anymore vacations!
