Lianne Shinton (00:00)

All right, welcome everybody. I'm Leanne Shinton from Automation Dogs. Welcome to my podcast where we talk to dog trainers and all sorts of people to help dog trainers with their business. And I reached out looking for someone who could speak to us who does like pet recovery, lost pet recovery, specifically someone that has dogs.

that find lost pets cause that is badass. So welcome Carmen, Carmen Brothers. I love your name. It's like pet detective name.

Carmen (00:38)

Thank you. Thank you. I get mistaken for the Carmen Brothers frequently. So yes.

Lianne Shinton (00:44)

And it's it's Carmen Brothers, right? I said it right, okay. Yeah.

Carmen (00:46)

it is. Yep, my first name's Carmen. My last name is brother. Yep. Yep. But

i it can be misconstrued on many occasions.

Lianne Shinton (00:53)

And I have to ask, what is your favorite scene from Ace Ventura Pet Detective? One of my favorite movies.

Carmen (01:00)

You know what? I

I probably haven't seen that in I

Lianne Shinton (01:04)

What?

Carmen (01:05)

don't even know how many years Yes. I yeah, I haven't watched it probably since it came out, to be honest. So I couldn't even tell you.

Lianne Shinton (01:12)

Okay, you need to go back to that because that's kind of what I'm thinking of when I talk to you. It's it's pretty unique.

Carmen (01:17)

Okay. Fair and and that's fair,

you know. Yes, it's definitely a different line of work, if you will. So

Lianne Shinton (01:24)

Very unique and fascinating

and a lot of mystery. I mean you're a detective, so

Carmen (01:30)

Yeah,

to to an extent. It's you know, you put a lot of pieces of the puzzle together. So

Lianne Shinton (01:36)

And I love your website. So if folks want to visit professional pettrackers.com, right?

Carmen (01:43)

Yes, yes, ma'am.

Lianne Shinton (01:44)

Beautiful website, and I think there is a lot of mystery to what you do. I guess, how did you get into this?

Carmen (01:54)

Accidentally. so I was volunteering with a rescue out of DC, City Dog's rescue, probably t it about ten, twelve years ago, I guess, and they lost a dog. And so I kind of got into the, you know, the logistics of it, the flyers and the do this and the don't do that. And in the process of trying to locate this dog, we found somebody who tracked lost pets. And it just kind of spun from there. there's a lot of misconception and I would say the major

ninety percent, maybe even ninety-five percent of people when they lose a dog, they kind of do the wrong thing because it's your gut instinct, you know, there goes my dog running down the road. I'm gonna, you know, obviously

Lianne Shinton (02:33)

Chase him.

Carmen (02:33)

I'm gonna call for my dog and I'm gonna go after and essentially you should be doing the exact opposite, you know, especially if they've been missing, I'd say, over two to four hours or so. so, you know, again, I learned all about the lost pet behavior and kind of the the science behind it.

and the, you know, do this, don't do that, and if this happens, do this kind of thing. And it just spiraled from there. I started volunteering with a nonprofit out of Baltimore that helps recover lost pets. And I was doing all of their intake calls, you know, that people would lose their pets and they'd fill fill out a form or whatnot. So I would talk to them and kind of get them a flyer and and go over what tracking was and more importantly almost what tracking is not. And if they were interested I would set them up with a tracker.

And then I actually started working a dog of my own. His name is Jake. He was a black and tan coon hound. And he you it just started, you know, weekends for you know, something to do for fun. And then I got an opportunity with National Geographic and they were like, Hey, we're doing this show. We'd love for you to be on it, but you know, you have to quit that full time job that adults typically strive to have, you know, with those benefits and four one K and film full time. So

me being the responsible individual I am. I'm like, sure, why would I not? And then I just never, never went back.

Lianne Shinton (03:52)

Wow. So that call from National Geographic, how did that happen?

Carmen (03:57)

Yeah, we film

it was we filmed full time every day almost for about a year for three one hour episodes. you know, they would come follow us around, whatnot. A lot of people think that when we come out with a tracking dog, we're obviously gonna track right up to Fluffy and then here hand them their pet. And that's a very, very large misconception. I would say, you know, f actually handing somebody their pet at the end of the track, well that's would be amazing every time. It happens less than five percent of time. You know, we

Unlike the five-year-olds that would be excited to see the dog coming to save them, you know, the dogs, cats, whatever, they're sensing me coming towards them before we even get eyes on them. And they're like, wait a minute, what is that? I don't know that's scent because they're relying on their sense of scent at this point more than anything else. And so they move. So we do a lot of proxim you know, perimeter work. And we I wouldn't say strive to not walk up on the pet, but I would rather them stay where they feel safe in an area they've kind of created for themselves.

And then work with them to come to us on their terms with whether that be trail cameras, feeding stations, and then eventually like humane trapping.

Lianne Shinton (05:05)

And I've heard I've seen on like Facebook when someone is, you know, looking for their dog and it just like takes off on them. They're almost feral at that point. Is that a real thing?

Carmen (05:15)

Yes.

It is. It's called flight mode or survival mode. And you know, once they're kind of out on their own, those animal instincts do kick in. It's not necessarily the, you know, fluffy little dog likes to cuddle with you on the couch and doesn't like touching the grass, you know, all that again, that's kind of all out the window. they no longer really associate you know, their mom, dad, whatever with sight and sound. It's all about scent. And because, you know, you think

They're again everything's on high alert and whatnot, and the adrenalines kick in. And you think about predators. And when predators are coming after prey, they're, you know, standing, making direct eye contact, moving towards them. And that's, you know, your pet's gonna flee quick. So unfortunately, because again, you know, they're not taking the time to realize, wait a minute, I know that person. They're just scared and they're gonna run. And so it it it happens relatively quickly with some dogs. And some dogs, you know.

I drove all the way to Missouri one time and it was a golden retriever. And I got there and I got my dog out of the car. It was an only dog. She did like other dogs. I got my my lab out of the car at the time. And here she comes bounding out of woods, just right up to to my dog magic. I was like, I'm so glad I drove thirteen hours. Here she is. You know,

Lianne Shinton (06:29)

Ha ha ha.

Carmen (06:30)

i i you know, it just it it's all very dog or animal dependent.

Lianne Shinton (06:36)

Fascinating. So it like I would freak out if if my pet was lost, like most people would, but it sounds like

Carmen (06:44)

Mm-hmm.

Lianne Shinton (06:45)

you know, you're you're getting to the destination, you're beginning some of these things you have to do as an expert tracker. How long is it until sometimes you find some of these pets?

Carmen (06:58)

I mean, unfortunately it's it's more of a marathon rather than a sprint. And it a hundred percent is a process. and that's something else that again, you know, when we speak with people initially, we make sure they understand because it can take a day, it can take a month. I think one of the longest dogs I had out that I was like actively working on getting home, she was out over a year and a half, I think. And, you know, some of these dogs with

you know, with the backgrounds on where they come from. Sometimes you know, sometimes the rescue you don't know, right? You don't know, you know, what they've been through prior to coming to where they're at now. some of them are very trap savvy or environmentally aware. And if they don't like, you know, they might not go into they're not crate trained. So some of them, you know, larger box traps, it looks like a crate. So they're gonna have no interest in going in it at all. or some of them can be too big for a box trap.

So you have to get a little creative and they've got different traps. One's called a missy trap that uses, you know, kennel panels essentially, and you kind of build it around. And then there's a a laser and a battery. It's a whole thing. This in particular dog would not go through any kind of threshold at all. Whether that be, you know, the box trap, a missy, you know, the doors, nothing. So we actually had to get a drop net brought up from North Carolina. And for that you have to, it's the size of like a soccer net.

And you have to essentially, you know, you have to clear the water and utilities and whatnot, 'cause you're, you know, putting these metal poles into the ground. And then there's magnets that release the net when the you know, when she goes underneath it. And you have to condition the dog for that. And, you know, it's it can be a lengthy process. And I think, you know, the

Lianne Shinton (08:36)

But the the

Carmen (08:37)

hardest part with that is getting, you know, the pet parents to not give up hope. Right? Because it just gets right.

Lianne Shinton (08:42)

That's the word I was thinking is hope. Like you're

you're giving me hope that you're able to find these dogs. Cause I think, you know, the first thing that comes to mind is they're for sure hit by a car, they're dead. So don't think that and don't give up hope.

Carmen (08:55)

Right. Yeah. no.

No. I mean your animals are smarter than we give them credit for. And you know, like I said, I've I've seen people where, my dog doesn't like walking on the grass or my dog won't do this and then my dog won't do that. And then next thing you I'm like in the middle of cornfield, you know, going through all the wet grass and everything, and I'm like, you know, again at the end of the day that that animal instinct is there. They do know how to take care of themselves when they have to. It's just at home, they don't really have to. Right? And so, you

Lianne Shinton (09:24)

Yeah.

Carmen (09:25)

know

we cater to them essentially. but they're capable of of quite a bit more than we we give them credit for.

Lianne Shinton (09:33)

Very good point, very good point. Can you tell me or share? I know you sent me a lot of videos. I really appreciated

Carmen (09:39)

Mm-hmm.

Lianne Shinton (09:40)

watching those. Could you tell us a lot a little bit of about a specific case that stands out to you in your career?

Carmen (09:50)

wow, let's see. Okay, well, kind of recently-ish. So actually, the dog was out four and a half years. I tracked a chihuahua named Sugar back in June of 2021 in the Richmond, Virginia area. And, you know, again, you get to an area and then you put up feeding stations and cameras and all these things, right? And you f people kind of underestimate the how important the signage is. Like you have to get flyers up.

And the bigger the better, the simpler the better. Because at the end of the day, whether you have a tracking dog or not, you still need kind of the general public, the neighbors or people in the community to know because you need them to call you and say, Hey, I just saw your dog in my backyard. And it helps develop a pattern. Nonetheless, you know, I and again, back in June, I'm not 100% sure 2021 exactly where, you know, the case kind of fell. But they managed to find sugar in October of 2025. I got a phone call and she was like, You're never gonna believe it.

He was living with a feral cat colony. He had gained weight. and he was just living his best life. I mean, you know,

Lianne Shinton (10:56)

Yeah.

Carmen (10:56)

the Chihuahuas, people underestimate the small dogs, but the small dogs will give you a run for your money. They go. And they're resourceful. So she got sugar home after four and a half years.

Lianne Shinton (11:08)

That is an amazing story. And yes, I would think a coyote would get those little chihuahuas like on the first night. So don't

Carmen (11:16)

Right. And you know,

people say that all the time and you know, you start again when you especially if you're out tracking, you know, with a tracking dog to get on people's property, you knock on doors, you know, hi, this is what we're doing. We're looking for you know, we're looking for fluffy and I've got a tracking dog. Are you okay with selling property for a second? And depending on the area you're in, you know, you get the kind of more southern old school kind of mentality where, you know what? We have coyotes through here, dog's dead. Like, okay, well, you know, thank you so much for your opinion, just kind of gotta keep moving. And it's

Is it possible? Sure. but I would say the majority of the time it's not really probable, right? Unless it's mating season can be a thing if, you know, animals come up on cubs and dens and that kind of stuff. But these dogs that are in flight mode, again, they hide really well. and and they do know how to take care of themselves at the end of the day.

Lianne Shinton (12:09)

That is cool. good for dogs. That

Carmen (12:11)

I would say kind of the

human human actually humans are probably more of the concern and more predatory than the animals are. Because people see a lost dog and they're like, there you there goes Fluffy. I see the sign. I'm gonna go get Fluffy. And they start chasing the dog or calling the dog. And now, you know, number one, that dog's not coming to you and the dog's gonna a thousand times over outrun you all day long. and all they're doing at this point is trying to get away from you. So they're not making, you know, they're making poor decisions, right? Whether that be to run into traffic.

get h you know, into a highway, that kind of thing. And you're also pushing them from where they very possibly are in like kind of a safe area where you might have trappers or trackers attempting to, you know, get them home. But now all that's out the door because now they're associating that area with fear and they're not gonna come back. So then we're starting from, you know, square one again.

Lianne Shinton (13:00)

I think you said at the beginning, one of the most important things to get those flyers out. I do see

Carmen (13:06)

Mm-hmm.

Lianne Shinton (13:06)

sometimes flyers like that. And on it it says, you know, do not approach. And I was always thinking, that dog must be fearful, but maybe he's gone into that fearful s fear a feral state. And that's just what we're dealing with.

Carmen (13:18)

Hundred percent. Yes. That's normally,

you know, the most friendly of friendly of friendly dogs, well, the flyers should likely still say, do not chase or do not approach.

Lianne Shinton (13:26)

Mm-hmm.

Carmen (13:28)

maybe, you know, take a picture with your phone and text it. In general, when I'm talking to people, I say, unless they're knocking at your front door, literally, pretend they're not even there. Because they're gonna run. And that's why a lot of the flyers generally don't have a name on them. Because again, it's so hard to take that, you know, instinct out of not calling the dog or whatever, because just that one

you know, one call could make or break the whole thing. And if they know the name, they're more than likely gonna call, right? So we don't put names on flyers or anything to try to discourage the calling out.

Lianne Shinton (14:01)

So because my audience is mainly dog trainers, it's probably advantageous if they're listening to this podcast and thinking about having a flyer almost ready to go. Because I've had people, you know, come to my facility, drop the dogs off, they open up their car door and gone goes Maggie. And I'm like, dude, now we have a problem. So

Carmen (14:21)

Right, right. Yep. Right.

You know, just a general template. Lost dog they again, they're on my website, they're on the Facebook page. you know, lost dog, do

not chase, phone number, done. That's all you need. You don't need anything we don't, you know, you don't need to tell the entire community that he is, you know, he only likes whatever for dinner or whatever. You know, sometimes pictures can be deceiving. So if they're, you know, a really, really small dog like

three to five pound dog that might look bigger in the picture, maybe put that on there. and then maybe like one of the little icons with, you know, take a picture and text it type of thing or please check your cameras. Cause that, you know, people have all the ring doorbells and Google Nests these days. And so you can actually utilize those cameras to pick up, you know, to get sightings as well. So use other people's cameras to help fill in that pattern.

Lianne Shinton (15:12)

Now, before we started recording today, you'd mentioned that it was just the fourth of July. And I know that that can be an insane time because I used to work in an emergency hospital. We were open in the middle of the night in Las Vegas. So Fourth of July and New Year's

Carmen (15:25)

Mm-hmm. Wow.

Lianne Shinton (15:28)

Eve, we had all these people dropping off these stray dogs that jumped fences, broke out of garages, whatever. And it it I mean, we would probably take in maybe 15 dogs in that.

on that evening and before and after because people are practicing their fireworks, which is horrible news for yeah, fireworks are just not worth the pleasure that they bring for the trouble they cause.

Carmen (15:56)

And especially when they're unexpected, right? Like if you're you're shooting them off on July 2nd and your neighbors don't know they haven't medicated dogs or whatever, they're out back type of thing. It can be a it's a it's a whole thing, yes. I myself have had over a hundred requests from June twenty sixth through right now. And it's just spanning, you know, I think I I had a couple in Norman, Oklahoma. I had a Tex Arcana, Texas come in.

I just got back from Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. So it's, you know, it can be a lot.

Lianne Shinton (16:30)

So you're

like a superhero flying all over to help.

Carmen (16:35)

Yeah, I just have a lot of miles. I like my car a lot. So yes.

Lianne Shinton (16:38)

Yeah, 'cause you're so you're

driving to these places.

Carmen (16:41)

I've got multiple dogs. So yes, you know, it's it's maybe not faster, but it's almost easier than attempting to get on a plane with, you know, got dog food, whatever, and gotta rent a car and and all the logistics. I try to map it out as, you know, in the order that makes the most sense geographically as I can. But it's almost guaranteed that every time I leave a state such as Vermont, by the time I hit like, you know, the the Maryland state line, I've got more Vermont or Maine or something super exciting coming in.

So there's no way I personally obviously can even call all these people back, right? Much less get

Lianne Shinton (17:19)

Yeah.

Carmen (17:19)

out there and actually help them. So I do have a network of people I work with, whether they be, you I've got a girl in California. I have two three others directly on my team. And then I do have a girl who helps me with my calls. Her name's Megan. She she lost her cat, I guess it's been about two years. I helped her find her cat and she kind of got very emotionally involved in it and she's been amazing. But

She'll take the forms when they come in and she'll do the initial call, kind of explaining what tracking is. This is what we do, this is how the process works, you know, making sure they have a good scent item, for instance. And for, you know, rescues and trainers and that type of those types of businesses, it takes maybe four seconds, and I think it costs like 10 cents an animal to make sure you have a good dedicated scent item for every pet that comes into your home. Because if, you know, Fluffy goes running off and you've got three other four other dogs in your home.

And they all share everything and and whatever, it helps to have, you know, I can't necessarily track off an item that all four dogs have been on and be confident I'm tracking the one that's the only one that's missing, if you will. So that's a a big problem with, you know, again, rescues or transport. And I've seen trainers struggle to come up with the dedicated scent items, especially if it's like a board and train, right? And mom and dad are on vacation in Italy and they're trying to get back, but they're not home yet.

And so you don't have access to, you know, anything of the dolls to their their their residence per se. And if can't get anything, I can't really do any kind of sense specific tracking for that animal without an item.

Lianne Shinton (18:51)

Wow. So a little tip might be if would the the owners maybe bring an item, Ziploc and Freezer Bagot, or like what could be a tip?

Carmen (19:02)

Or I mean again, all it

is it's it's it's just gauze. You know, get some latex gloves, right? Get a piece of gauze, wipe the dog down, ears, paws, whatever, like right when they get to you. Like a lot of times they'll put on the different collars or or whatever. When you're doing the different collar, just incorporate it into your, you know, incoming your intake procedures, right?

Lianne Shinton (19:20)

Yeah.

Carmen (19:21)

Gauze, gloves, put it in a Ziploc bag, label it with the dog's name, put it in the freezer. That way if Fluffy goes running off,

Lianne Shinton (19:26)

I love that.

Carmen (19:27)

but you know, while they're there, you know you have something that's just theirs.

It's not contaminated at all and it's set away.

Lianne Shinton (19:33)

Yeah, maybe just for the Beagles and the Huskies and those types of dogs that are you know, red flag r flight risk dogs.

Carmen (19:39)

The pro Right.

Right. Right. Huskies, shot yes, all of those.

Lianne Shinton (19:44)

Yes. Okay, so that's a good little tip. Have have the

Carmen (19:45)

Malinois, I'm

Lianne Shinton (19:49)

the flyer ready to go. look at your website so you can get tips there. And you mentioned at the beginning of the call, like thing people just inadvertently do the wrong thing. They chase the dog, things like that. Like what I as a dog trainer, I kind of know like run away, crouch down, grab a bowl with some food. Yes.

Carmen (20:08)

Right. They call it calming, you know, calming signals, right? Calming signals. And

again, you know, something that especially from a trainer's standpoint, right? You know, you might have just met this dog. This dog has no idea who you are or anything like that. So they're not necessarily looking for you particularly when they go missing. They're looking for mom and dad scent. Right. And so if you know, you just want to make sure that you don't don't get offended when they try to do turn around and run from you, but if you can get them back relatively quickly, like a game.

Right? You know, look, and we know that they like playing fetch, whatever, it's a more of a puppy. Turn around and run into any kind of fenced in backyard. Run away from them. or you know, toss some food and get down on the ground, type of thing. Just don't make direct eye contact. And hopefully they are able to get close enough to you to realize, you know, okay, I can trust this person. And even if they don't, you know, maybe you're covered in like baking grease. You have something that's, you know, definitely appealing that to make them approach you and go from there. But

I find a lot, like I know a couple of, you know, some of the more military esque trainers that I've worked with in the past, you know, and again, they're coming at it from a missing person standpoint almost, right? Like you've got this person missing, they've missing however many hours. Now they're they're talking about doing grid searches and you know, all of this other stuff, which if you were missing, you know, the eighty two year old woman or the five five year old kid, that's a hundred percent great. But by grid searching any woods and having more people flood that area that this dog does not know and is not familiar with, all we're doing is pushing that dog further away.

And so it's kind of important to realize that less can be more. I generally tell people if they want to help to take a stack of flyers and get up. You know, for a dog, I would say a three to five mile radius. You know, a dog can go three to five miles a day if they put their mind to it. Ideally it's it's a circle of sorts, but again, you know, if they find themselves on train tracks, power lines, creek beds, they can just easily kick it straight and not, you know, not turn back.

A lot of people worry even more because it's not a location that the dog's familiar with. But high insight, dogs that get lost from places they're not familiar with, whether it be car accidents, state parks, borders, train whatever, they do tend to circle back to point of loss. It's just a matter of when and if anyone's there to see them. So I, you know, hopefully maybe they have some ring cameras or something like that out about the property and they wanted to grill that night for dinner, right? Get that sent up in the air.

And, you know, leave the food outside and let's see if we can, you know, get Fluffy coming back on the camera to point of loss when things kind of quiet down and there's no one out and about.

Lianne Shinton (22:40)

Great tips. What would you be doing if you didn't get on this journey of like what was your what was your life plan? Because you definitely went down this path of pet tracker.

Carmen (22:56)

It was not this.

I I I'm a former director of human resources for Marriott. I've worked for Hilton. I've done a lot of recruiting and staffing. I've worked for the Washington Redskins doing staffing for their press box and the the suite level catering suites. So totally different. Totally different. Definitely more in the office

Lianne Shinton (23:15)

Wow. It

Carmen (23:17)

and not in the middle of the woods having, you know, going through spider webs.

Lianne Shinton (23:22)

And was it the your dogs you were finding dogs like how did you get started in the very beginning?

Carmen (23:32)

Well, I mean, just kind of, you know, the interest sparked from the rescue, City Dog's rescue. And then yes, I you know, I just kind of just got more and more involved and it was just so cool to kind of give back and it was something, you know, just different and neat. And I was able to work with my dogs, right? Like, you know,

Lianne Shinton (23:47)

Yeah.

Carmen (23:48)

obviously I love I love animals, I love dogs. And it was you know, when you think about recruiting an HR, you are still helping people, right? Whether that be helping them get a job, helping them do this. So I'm still helping people, it's just in a different aspect.

Lianne Shinton (24:01)

Awesome. Yeah, so it's it's tied in superhero slash HR.

Carmen (24:07)

Right, you know,

details. And the HR gave me a little bit of the I would say emplo not really emplo client relations background, right? Because you're dealing with a lot of different

Lianne Shinton (24:16)

Mm.

Carmen (24:16)

personality types. And not only are you out there from like, you know, the tracking standpoint, but you almost end up playing a therapist as well. Because b you have to kind of, you know, help people control their emotions and set expectations. And y I find a lot of time, you know, obviously everyone's very, very upset and some can be more emotional than others.

But at the end of the day, it's you know, I like to have the owners with me when I'm tracking because again, their dog is looking for them. So if I can have their scent where their dog is, that just helps, you know, reinforce the dog will stay in that area. I've had the dogs come out behind us on tracks and we've gotten them that way. But if mom's out there, you know, crying and sobbing and can't, you know, kind of get a grip, her dog's not gonna want anything. Her dog's like, what's wrong? Something's wrong with mom. Mm mm, I'm not, you know, we're not doing that. I'm just gonna stay hidden here or I'm gonna go a little further till mom comes.

you know, calms down and maybe then reapproach. But I try to have everyone out there, you know, we're not crying if you need to cry, sob, whatever, great, we'll do it at home, close doors. And then we're when we're out and about tracking or whether you're hanging flyers or doing feeding stations, you gotta stay a little bit optimistic and try to keep your emotions in check, which is very challenging.

Lianne Shinton (25:26)

And and also n need to work together as a team with you too, so they're

Carmen (25:31)

yes.

Lianne Shinton (25:31)

not distracting you from doing your job.

Carmen (25:35)

There are a lot of hands involved and you know, everybody kind of plays a part. you know, I do I I can trap, yes, but the trapping's kind of a different a whole different animal in itself, if you will. Especially because again, I can't tell you if, you know, it's cats in particular tend to take a little longer than dogs do. And so I just don't have the bandwidth to go up to Vermont and track a cat and then sit up there for the next seven weeks while I trap the cat and get the cat home. So I do, you know, work with a network of trappers

kind of all over the East Coast, Midwest. there are a couple I know in Oregon. I've got somebody in Washington State that once sightings start coming in or once there's a track done so we know where we have scent, where we don't have scent, they're able to come in with cameras and and feeding stations. And then once we get the animal on camera, then they can go to the live trapping portion of it. So you're you're dealing with a lot of different, you know, hats per se, a lot of different personalities that have to come together and collaborate just to to get the one dog home.

Lianne Shinton (26:34)

Yeah, I bet the sighting calls could throw ya off too if someone has a sighting but it's the wrong pet. Yeah.

Carmen (26:41)

And that happens a lot. And the

most challenging thing, and I'm not quite sure why, but 'cause everyone's got a phone in their hand all the time. I mean, people are like they you always have a phone. It's very hard for people to take a picture. Like it's I I j

Lianne Shinton (26:54)

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Carmen (26:56)

I just don't I don't get it. You know, like we say don't chase and you kind of say take a picture of scene, right? 'Cause you're thinking, Okay, let me we don't want them to chase, so let's give them something else to do, right? They'll take a picture and text it and that picture can it can make or break.

Because again, you know, at the end of the day I could say where I have scent and I t I do tend to go out outside of that area and look at, okay, so the you know, path of travel is this. So he could easily pop up here, here, here, and I do like a perimeter of what I call negative markers, meaning no scent is present. And I tell people, you know, the track is a snapshot in time. Just because Fluffy's not here right now does not mean in forty eight hours he will not be. And so that way we incorporate those areas as well into the flying and the outreach. And that way when f if Fluffy does move,

We know about it. But when we get the call, you know, okay, we saw a dog, looks just like him, 100%, whatever, 17 miles away. Okay, it's been 24 hours. Is it possible? Sure. Is it probable? not pro probably not. But again, it's hard to say a hundred percent. And so then you have to take those resources and you have to move them 17 miles out, get a camera and a feeding station out there just in case it was fluffy, get more flyers out 17 miles out, just in case.

only to come back and find out it was, you the doppelganger or it was the guy who lives on the corner. He's got a dog that looks just like him and he, you know, he roams, kind of thing. there are some tools that, you know, we do lineup cards for for clients, which essentially it's like a police lineup, right? So when people call you off the flyers, you will they're already they they think they saw the dog on the flyer, right? And that's why they're calling.

But if you give them options, like you put two pictures of of your target dog on there that are not on social media and not on the flyer, and then you throw in some extras, like a you know, you can look at a lost and found page and say, okay, here, there's another ship missing. We'll put him on there, and then we'll throw a mouth on there. A lot of times I'll throw a deer on there because you'd be surprised how many people see Bambi and get get confused. And then when

Lianne Shinton (28:54)

Whoops.

Carmen (28:55)

the sighting calls come in, I have them send them that picture and say, Okay, which dog did you see? And ideally they pick out your dog and not Bambi and whatnot.

And that kinda helps to, you know, it it just helps with the confirmation, right? So that we were a little bit more sure because again, it's not the picture on the flyer that they were expecting to see, but they have to actually think about what they saw. So we try to, you know, take off any extra burden per se and kind of help narrow it down as much as we can.

Lianne Shinton (29:24)

Yeah, that is interesting. And I love the what did you call it? The lineup? Lineup card. I love that.

Carmen (29:30)

A lineup card, yes, yes. And again, it's like a police

lineup lineup. It's got, you know, eight pictures of a variety of dogs on there or whatever. you know, cats are a whole different thing. And I I'm sure that, you know, I don't know a lot of trainers that train cats, but you know, for people that have cats that are trainers, right? You know, if you're not a cat person, you see a a white and black cat, okay, that's you know, clearly the cat that's missing. You're not looking at markings and all this other stuff that, you know, the cat people are. And so it can really help with that because

you know, one white stripe going this way, then your cat has it going that way, it you know, cats can be a little more challenging with the sightings. I'll I'll just leave it at that.

Lianne Shinton (30:08)

I bet,

I bet. Now tell me, you mentioned your dog magic, and you mentioned that

Carmen (30:13)

Mm-hmm.

Lianne Shinton (30:13)

you had multiple dogs. Tell me about your dogs.

Carmen (30:16)

Well, so Magic was, she was a yellow lab, she passed away about a year ago, but she was kind of the one that I based the entire idea off of. You'll see, you know, if you go to the website or whatnot, you'll see a yellow lab. That was her. And she was actually a diabetic alert dog prior to me, and she ended up in a shelter in Texas. And they reached out and they were like, you know, we've got this dog, she'd probably be really, really good. She's already got scent work on her, you just have to teach her how to follow it. And she knew her job and she loved it and, you know, we had a great time.

I found that some of the terrain I go through, like I wasn't really excited about going over horse jumps without the horse, for instance, right? And I I'm not even saying, you know, I'm not even being I'm being very specific. Like literally some of these dogs in the country, you're going over horse jumps and trying to keep up with them. And it's significantly harder with me in a lab. So I I branched out and I have a rat terrier named Trix. And so that way if I have to do searches like that in the or

I've looked for missing horses, and it's much easier to keep up with them while you're on a horse. I can put her in a backpack and we can go. She's much easier to pick up and just drop down and go with that. I have a another black lab named Finley, and he is kind of my main go-to right now. we just certified in Texas, actually, with United Canines. And then I've got a lab, his half brother, I guess, different litter, named Tracer, and he just turned six months old, and we're in the process of training him up.

Lianne Shinton (31:43)

Wow. That is amazing. So you really leaned into the dogs as part of this instead of just

Carmen (31:51)

yes.

Lianne Shinton (31:51)

I'm gonna learn how to use the drones and the traps and the flyers and help people that way. You've leaned into heavily having all of these amazing dogs.

Carmen (32:00)

I do. you know, I do have a thermal drone as well and it's it can be useful. I find that, you know, it's again, everything's a tool, right? And so, you know, each case is a little different. But when you bring all those tools together, it helps to form the pi it helps to complete the puzzle. So a lot of times, you know, especially with the drones, and I think people want that immediate gratification. They're like, Okay, the drone's gonna go up, they're gonna see my dog, I'm gonna go get my dog, and then we're gonna be done with it. Yes. And that sounds amazing.

But what people don't take into consideration is that dog that you've had for 24 hours, it does not know you. Okay, the drone's gonna see it, but then what? You're gonna try and go get this dog and the dog's gonna be like, I don't know you, I'm out. And then it's the game of chase again. if the drone sees nothing, you're kind of left with nothing, right? You have no idea, no direction of travel, no nothing. But with a tracking dog, no matter what, you're gonna have a direction of travel. You're gonna have s you know, valid information on a map that will help you

map out the entire process, right? The way I do it mainly is again, I I'll run the dogs first. Depending on where I'm at, I'll either have the drone follow me or go out ahead of me and kind of to the sides. And I've had that happen where he sees the dog four hundred feet in front of me and he calls. He's like, Hey Mavis, four hundred feet in front of you which gives me time to back out with my dog because again, Mavis doesn't know Carmen or Finley. And then I can send the owner in with calming signals and hopefully she can get the dog that way 'cause again, we've got eyes on the dog and I'm not

you know, pushing them. or we've had it happen where, you know, I get to an area and then I'm able to kind of block it in with negative markers and then we have the drone fly that area to try to get the visual. So it's, you know, it it can work in the first five to seven hours and they can like again, you might get lucky and hey, my dog's gonna come right to me. That'd be amazing. Or if they're stuck in a ravine or, you know, leash is attached, that kind of thing. But I find that when you pair the two, you have a little bit more of an advantage. And

Five days of a dog missing with no sightings, I would almost say you need a sighting to throw a drone up, unless you have a dog as well. Cause if they're gonna go two miles a day, having a drone go up from point of loss, cause you have no idea where they are or where they went, you're not gonna you might see someone else's dog, but you're probably not going to see your dog without knowing where to

Lianne Shinton (34:15)

It

Carmen (34:16)

look.

Lianne Shinton (34:17)

it sounds just like a this beautiful choreographed like scenario. Like you've done this a lot. So you Yeah, it is it's an art. Yeah.

Carmen (34:23)

Well, i I call it the art of finding lost pets. Because it's like it's a dance. It's it's a

dance, right? You have to put all the pieces together, everyone has to know their part and play their part, and everyone, you know, ideally plays really well together in the sandbox, if you will. And that's what kind of makes it work. I d I don't think, you know, I couldn't do it by myself, I know that. And again, it's really the team behind you that makes you successful.

Lianne Shinton (34:50)

And I think when you and I first talked, I was so curious, even coming from a dog trainer, I've taught my dog to find my scent. I've taught my dog to find a bad guy's scent, things like that. But to teach my dog to search for a lost husky like or an iguana, maybe

Carmen (35:09)

Well, yeah.

Lianne Shinton (35:10)

share a little bit about that because it blew my mind. I'm like, I never thought of that.

Carmen (35:17)

Well, and you know, a lot of people it's yeah, a lot of people are of the mentality, I guess, that a dog will not track another dog. Or a dog that tracks a dog will never track a person. I've come to find in my experiences and you know, through training and and just, you know, trial and error that I want my dog to track whatever scent I present them. Whether that be the two year old, the capo bara, the husky, the eighty year old, whatever. so I and I've done all of the above. You know, I've done capabaras, I've done turtles, I've done

Fennec foxes, I've done kids. And again, it's, you know, it's what you train for, right? So if I never trained to try to find a lost dog or train my dog to track, you know, lost dogs, then I probably wouldn't, I would be like, yeah, there's no way, you know, he's gonna jump tracks and he's gonna go find the owner or something like that, or he's gonna jump tracks and next thing you know, we're chasing deer. But again, it's just coming down to knowing how to read your dog and having, you know, the three magic words, trust your dog.

I think that's probably the hardest, you know, concept most handlers have, no matter how experienced you are. You always have to trust your dog. And if you don't have that kind of relationship or that confidence, number one, your dog's gonna feel it down the line and your dog's gonna like, well, mom doesn't think I can do this, so what are we doing? I'd much rather go, you know, check out the deer or check out the groundhog or whatever, start crittering, than and kind of going from there.

Lianne Shinton (36:42)

And so you the capiberas and the fennec foxes, I'm like, my gosh, just so you did you find these capiberas?

Carmen (36:48)

Cap a bear was named Copernicus.

Yes, his name was Copernicus, and she had a little like a tuxedo harness for him or whatever. And he chewed his way through a pig pen type situation in the backyard. and you know, cappa bears they like water. They can they can live in water. I think it's up to twenty two or twenty-three hours they can stay underwater without coming up for air. And then when they do come up, just a little nose, you know, pops up, which is probably the size of like your pinky nail. and they had a pond on the property.

And so I had Jake the Coon Hound and then I, you know, I Jake and Magic, they both did the same track. They both looped the pond and got in. Now, for my lab to get in the water, okay. You know, maybe she, you know, she's a lab. It is what it is. But Jake was not a fan of swimming. it's very hard to try to trap a capabara that's in a pond because they don't eat meat. There's no luring, right? Like everything they need is in that pond. They have no desire to come like w what do you do?

so about six months went by and I got a text from a girl and she's like, Carmen, your dogs are so smart. She was like, We were out there at the fire pit and we saw Copernicus in the pond. And I'm like, Yay. So I guess Copernicus is possibly still living his best life in the pond in their backyard. I mean, I would assume if there was a hundred and twenty-pound rat running around Baltimore, Maryland, we might hear about it somewhere and you'd know about it. So I'm I'm gonna assume he's still in the pond, but yes, very very different type of track.

Lianne Shinton (38:13)

Any other unusual

unusual animals, tigers, orangutans, anything else? Gaboons?

Carmen (38:18)

I mean, I got I did get the

request for the zebras in Tennessee. I forget the he it was a big thing last maybe about a year ago, maybe not even. I cannot keep up with a zebra that's covering a state

Lianne Shinton (38:30)

Mm.

Carmen (38:30)

per se. I can't, you know, aga it has to be done kind of within reason. I've gotten requests for alligators before. I've had two different alligator requests. One was named Karen in Michigan, and I I did not take those for a variety of reasons. Number one, again, you know, I've got a rat terrier.

She's 15 pounds. She's 20 feet in front of me. Yeah. I I know they say Karen's super domesticated and whatnot, but I just yeah, you know, that's

Lianne Shinton (38:57)

Yeah.

Carmen (38:58)

kind of like a s a a appetizer for Karen, if you will. I've gotten requests, you know, I've done turtles, I've I cannot do snakes because I I personally don't think I could yeah, that probably wouldn't work well for me.

Lianne Shinton (39:12)

Yeah.

Carmen (39:14)

but you know, I've gotten requests for

Domesticated ducks.

Lianne Shinton (39:18)

So

Carmen (39:19)

we we have we did do a parrot at one point not long ago in Leesburg and we were able to track, you know, again, sent ascent, it's dropping to the ground, right? So we were able to get two sightings off of the track, but I don't, you know, and then I guess I had to do some lost parent research, right? Because I'm not super familiar with birds. Apparently it's a big homing thing, and so we put his cage up there on a balcony and hoped he would come too. And

He was in a part of Virginia where like right on the Potomac River. So he could easily just and he did hop over. He just flew over the river to Maryland and there he was. And it's not quite that simple for for me, if you will. but you know, essentially if it has a scent, we can do our best to go find, you know, I we do what we can. Do we get every pet home? Unfortunately not. It's kind of, you know, like there is that they they do think for themselves, right? So for instance, dogs that are

A neutered, not altered. They might not follow the whole lost pet behavioral type patterns, right? Because they're gonna get up with something and they're mm-mm, I'm not doing this circle and screw your bacon. I'm gonna go this way. and again, human interference is always a thing, right? If they get chased, they get pushed from an area, it totally switches stuff up. a lot of people try to do finders keepers with certain kinds of dogs, which makes it challenging. And it just, you know.

Lianne Shinton (40:41)

What's finders

keepers? they keep the they they get the dog

Carmen (40:44)

They yes.

Lianne Shinton (40:45)

and they just keep it. Yeah.

Carmen (40:47)

Correct.

I had a blind pit bull not long ago. She was out thirty eight days. I think the track took me maybe four minutes. We went out the you know, we went out the yard or whatever and they were super concerned about woods and everything else and whatever. I had no scent anywhere near any kind of woods. And we went on the main road, we walked up the main road a little bit, finally crossed the street and then sat down a driveway. And that's just where scent ended. You know, I went out to try to make sure I didn't miss a backtrack or something, you know, just to kind of cover all my bases and I had nothing. We did not get one siding. Thirty-eight days later, she showed up at their back door.

Healthy as all could be, paws were fine. There she did smell like perfume, I was told a little bit. So we're relatively confident that she might have been sitting on someone's couch. And, you know, her owners were super, super persistent about it. Like they put out, I mean, every day it was Facebook and they had the great big banners out. And so I'm assuming it's probably someone who drove through the area, maybe, and felt, I would hope, felt bad. sometimes a lot of people just don't know what to do when they find a dog, baby.

And if there aren't

Lianne Shinton (41:45)

Mm.

Carmen (41:45)

flight like if the dog just goes missing and is, you know, super friendly and it's been twenty minutes and they're just out living their best life and they hop in a car, there's no signs up yet. Nothing's been done because the nobody might even know that the dog's missing. And then it becomes a whole a whole thing. You know, not everyone's on the lost and found Facebook pages. Not everyone's on Facebook. And while microchips are relatively well known these days, I mean, I'm pretty sure, you know, you find somebody who's seventy five, eighty years old, they find a dog, they think they're doing the right thing because, you know, they don't want

fluffy to get hurt or whatever, but they don't know about microchips, it's it can be challenging.

Lianne Shinton (42:21)

Yeah, that would suck. Yeah.

Carmen (42:23)

Yeah, it it's not great.

Lianne Shinton (42:25)

They'll invent like a whole backstory of how abused the dog was and they're saving it and yeah.

Carmen (42:32)

Right.

You know, I did I think it was Fourth of July weekend, maybe five years ago. and it was a little Boston Terrier named Fisher, and they were his family was from Rhode Island or c no, they from Connecticut. And he went missing it was a sa it happened to be a Saturday, the fourth of July. He went missing from their condo. I think I got up there maybe day five or six, and there'd been no sightings, no nothing. And we tracked and we the track ended in front of a nightclub called Secrets. And that's a very, you know

People are in and out all weekend long, right? Like it's a very, you know, vacation touristy destination. It was also Fourth of July weekend, right? So you have even more people in there. And they're probably, you know, checking in Sunday out Sunday, Sunday to Sunday type rentals. And we did we got nothing. I mean, sh this girl pushed it out in a every way, shape, form possible she could to find this dog. And nothing for eight months. And he was found in Baltimore, Maryland, wearing a studded leather, you know, studded collar.

And he probably got out from whoever he was with because whoever found him knew to scan for a microchip. And that's how he got reunited.

But you know, again, Fourth of July weekend, send end in front of a very well known bar, club, whatever. My thoughts probably, Well, he's you know, somebody probably woke up Sunday morning and they were like, Wow, I have this dog. Where'd you come from? And off to Baltimore Fisher went. So Yeah.

Lianne Shinton (43:56)

Wow.

And tell me a little bit about your dogs, some of the training exercises, how often you're working with them to help, you know, do their magic.

Carmen (44:08)

Well, so right now Tracer's still in training. You know, we we do we try to train it varies because again with my schedule, you know, I kinda have to be super flexible with it, right? Like I was up in I we're we were staying in Connecticut, Harvard, Connecticut last weekend and we did some training there with a couple of friends of mine who are starting their dolls as well at the Residence Inn. Yeah, you kinda got it you again, it's helping environmentally as well, right? So now they're used to this and you're training through it.

We try and train with him at least three times a week at this point. And he started doing, you know, heart surfaces. And when we were in Texas, we had an exercise that we were tracking through an elementary school. And then he had to, you know, d detect which kid it was out of seven kids at the end of the track and he did phenomenal. Finley, we tried to not work every day, but at this time of year we're probably pretty much working almost every day. We didn't he didn't work today, but we're booked from tomorrow through Monday.

so I don't really push training on him right now at this point. Typically we go every other Saturday and we have a group we train with and we, you know, always work on your foundational stuff, right? Because that's you know, at the end of the day, that's what you want. So we just continue, you know, expanding on foundational stuff or switching up surfaces or, you know, a variety of go to Dulles Airport and do some stuff through the baggage claim. You know, the Buckeys gas station. There's one that opened up in Harrisonburg, Virginia a couple of years ago and we did some training exercises through Bucky's.

I I found that Finley does not like the Bucky the Beaver in his whole mo you know, the whole beaver suit and whatnot. So we might not do super well at Disney World. but

Lianne Shinton (45:48)

Ha ha ha.

Carmen (45:48)

you know, he wanted nothing to do with that thing. but we just, you know, have to stay consistently on top of it. And especially when you're training a new dog, you have to kind of stay as consistent as you can, which with my kind of lifestyle is not super simple. I mean, my schedule shifts every

It could I I don't it could shift every hour, every two hours, it's just hard to say. Someone comes home and you shuffle and all of that stuff.

Lianne Shinton (46:15)

And when you are working with the dogs, like practicing, do you have them finding humans, dragging?

Carmen (46:22)

Both.

Lianne Shinton (46:23)

Okay.

Carmen (46:24)

Both. or you know, again, like, you know, some of the age tracks or whatnot, like, you know, I live on the side of a mountain. So when it was snowing and all that good stuff, we'd work on age tracks. I'd lay the track before the snow, track mid-snow, and then lay another one. Just again 'cause I work a lot in Vermont, in Maine. And if you don't know what your dog is capable of and you don't train for it, you have no idea what to expect when you get up there. so I'll take a collar or whatever, I'll I'll walk tricks, you know, downside of the mountain whatever.

And again, because I can pick her up, right? I'll wrap a collar or something around a tree branch, pick her up, and then come off the track and let it age. So that way when we get when we actually run the track, you can see kind of what their disposition's gonna be when they get there, but there's no subject, right? But there's an item. So that way you can teach them an alert on the on the collar per se. And with pickups, you know, someone puts a dog in a car, that kind of thing, you might not be lucky enough to have any kind of item, so you have to know what to look for.

Lianne Shinton (47:21)

Yeah, this sounds like a lot. You have to just consider so many, so many variables.

Carmen (47:27)

They they are y I mean, yes. And I learned something new almost on every case. you know, like

Lianne Shinton (47:34)

Fun.

Carmen (47:34)

dogs like they like to follow water, right? Like, you know, the kind of three common characteristics of lost pets are they circle. They tend to be most active between dusk and dawn, and they're gonna stay near a water source, whether it a river, a creek, a pond, whatever. But you get, you know, you lose a lab that loves water and you're right there on a creek bed, that lab's gonna go running down that creek bed till whatever.

And then you have to start thinking about, okay, well, how is that water dispersing the scent? Right? So you need to, you know, if that water, if he's running through here or whatever, he lays down the creek and splashes around, wherever that water, the direction of that water flow is going to disperse that scent further out, quite possibly significantly further out than where the dog's actually gone. So now you gotta figure out, okay, am I tracking paws on the ground scent or am I tracking, you know, dispersed water scent? And i there's, you know, you kinda there's a lot the

goes into it that people kind of don't think about per se.

Lianne Shinton (48:28)

Wow, yeah, that is a lot. Is there the just so many things to unpack? but is there anything that you'd like to share that people might

do but something that just might really surprise us.

Carmen (48:50)

Let's see. Like a fun fact about lost animal behavior or about like

So, okay, here's this good stuff, well, I don't know, it's a fun story, I guess, ish. we tracked a cat in Tribeca that went missing off a sixth floor terrace. And the cat actually never left, her paws never touched the ground. She building hopped. And so I I was using again my rat terrier and I'm not building you know, people might think, you know, that's very superhero esque your job and whatever, you're amazing

Lianne Shinton (49:20)

Ha ha ha.

Carmen (49:21)

and blah, blah, blah. But I'm not that cool. I'm not super yeah, I'm not

Lianne Shinton (49:24)

You're

Carmen (49:25)

building hop in anything, I don't care how close it is.

Lianne Shinton (49:26)

not matrix? Okay.

Carmen (49:29)

and you know, again, the air scent or whatever pulls and you got, you know, wind and all that stuff. So we were able to kind of pinpoint and actually see the cat with binoculars on a building caddy corner to where we were. So that's kind cool. you know

Lianne Shinton (49:41)

Yeah. See.

Carmen (49:45)

again I would say it's not impossible and you don't know if it's impossible until you try it. And the training is a big portion of it. If you don't train your dog on age tracks

you're never gonna know if you can do HTRACs. you know, some of the more, I guess, you know, some people are the mentality that the rain will wash scent away, right? Once it rains, tracking's over. There's no, you know, you're not gonna be able to get anything, whatever. And if you're in like Tribeca, okay, that might be true because it's literally all it is is concrete, right? But for more suburban, rural, country, farm, those kinds of areas, the ground actually enhances it. So the rain's gonna enhance the scent. The ground will act as a sponge and absorb it.

making it more fresh for tracking dogs. So it's kind of a misconception that I would say seventy five to eighty percent of people have.

Lianne Shinton (50:31)

Yeah. And if folks you said that obviously through July fourth people are reaching out to you, what does that process look like? They go to your website, is there a fee? What does that all look like?

Carmen (50:42)

Yep. Well,

so you go to the website and there's a whole like tracking consultation request form and you fill that out and once you submit that you get tips for a lost cat or a lost dog or I think both actually depending on what you maybe what you select. And then I kind of put it out there on social media and everywhere else. And again, it is the fourth of July. And so we try to respond to people within twenty four to forty eight hours, but when you're getting, you know, seventeen requests a day, it's it's challenging to trouble that.

To to juggle all that. so patience. And then once they submit a form, you know, Megan will call them back and kind of go over everything. Like, okay, they might not even need tracking, or tracking might not be a good option for them, right? If they're seeing their dog every day on camera somewhere, they don't need me and they don't really want me. You know, tracking dog's just gonna I'm I'm essentially doing what we tell people to not do. I'm methodically chasing their dog, right? And so if you know where your dog is, you again, you don't need me, you need a trapper.

And so if that's the case, we try to connect them with somebody in their community who's able to help them, you know, with a live trap or, you know, with the cats and whatnot. The equipment isn't as heavy per se and it isn't as you know, large and hard to come by.

Lianne Shinton (51:53)

Yeah.

Carmen (51:53)

So we can coach them on how to get their cat home and how to trap their cat. and then maybe they just need the drone, right? I mean, again, it's just it's all very situational. Now there is I'm not independently wealthy.

So there is a fee for the tracking and the travel and all that. And again, that's kind of dependent on where they're located and what are they missing? Are they missing, you know, a dog that's been gone twenty four days with no sightings and it's a husky and they lost him from a national forest type of thing? Or is it the indoor only cat that's been missing for, you know, two or three days and that kind of stuff? It just depends on length missing, what you know, what's missing, what's the with the background and look locations big.

Yeah, there's obviously a very large difference in me driving twenty minutes versus be driving nine and a half hours each way.

Lianne Shinton (52:40)

Awesome. That is very helpful info. Now, as a dog trainer, what advice would you have for someone like me if I had a your perimeter issue or equipment malfunction and this dog is gone? if I reach out to you. okay.

Carmen (52:58)

Well, I would say tell the owner first, before anything

else, a hundred percent tell the owner. I would say be very, very proactive with it, right? Especially when you're talking to the owner, kinda have a plan in place. And, you know, that's something I know that a variety of companies or organizations will do. They have, you know, okay, yes, we've put our staff and our trainers or our walkers, whatever, we've gone through a lost pet prevention class. So that way we know we take the extra precautions to not be in this situation. But if we are faced with it, we do have, you know, a steering operating procedures of what to do and how to do it and when.

And that kind of thing. but you know, definitely have just a template like a blank flyer that says lost and a phone number on the bottom. And start with flyers. Definitely re if you if they do want to consider a tracking dog, I would say reach out sooner than later. Because ideally they reach out and they schedule or whatever, and then Fluffy comes home and I'm not needed. But if they wait the five days to reach out and then you're booked seven days out, now we're in two weeks. And while yes, tracking can still be done.

But I have a feeling that you're gonna have a very upset owner that's gonna be frantic and and whatnot. And again, it's just kind of wasting time that could be used to put an action plan in place with feeding station flyers, do this, don't do that type of thing. Now, when they call, like right now I am booked out almost two weeks, we do say, Okay, well you live here and you say this is you know, make sure you have flyers here, here, and here. You know, make sure you get flyers. I tell people to get flyers to the churches within a ten to fifteen mile radius because that's a different demographic of people.

Right. You know, they're probably not on Facebook. And if they're driving around they might not see the, you know, letter size flyer on a phone pole. But they go to church, type of thing. And so we can give them resources and things to do that will be that help and proactive per se until we can get there.

Lianne Shinton (54:42)

Excellent. And yeah, you keep saying flyers. So I think that is one of the biggest things is have a plan and

Carmen (54:46)

Big, big, yes.

Lianne Shinton (54:47)

have a plan in place. Cause if you're just like a two-man show, a one-man show, you know, maybe have somebody where you could say, hey, print these, get them out for me, have a flyer person, because these flyers seem to be a really important piece for this.

Carmen (55:01)

There

I tell people that if they can afford good flyers or they can afford Carmen, they need to go with the flyers. Because at the end of the day, once I'm there and if we get to a different area, guess what? We're still gonna need flyers. So, you know, that I can't stress that enough. And it's probably th the most challenging thing to get people to do because it's not fun. It really actually no, it's it kinda sucks having to go put a flyers on every stop sign and whatever. And it's

Lianne Shinton (55:25)

Yeah.

Carmen (55:25)

tedious and it's just, you know, whatever. But it's also

the number one way to to get your pet home quickly and safely.

Lianne Shinton (55:34)

Excellent advice. well maybe go ahead and share again how folks can find you. I we know your website, if you could share that again, any socials

Carmen (55:42)

Mm-hmm.

Lianne Shinton (55:43)

that might have information for them

Carmen (55:45)

So

Lianne Shinton (55:46)

on.

Carmen (55:46)

the website is professional pettrackers dot com. The Facebook page is petfound, well Facebook dot com and then petfound inc, INC. And then Instagram is found professional pet trackers.

Lianne Shinton (56:00)

Excellent. Well thank you f

Carmen (56:02)

I have a feeling if you

Google Carmen Brothers, you'll probably also get me as well.

Lianne Shinton (56:08)

Awesome. And your homework is to go watch Ace Ventura Pet Detective.

Carmen (56:12)

Yes, a hundred percent. I won't yes, that's gonna be added to my to do list.

Lianne Shinton (56:16)

Love that movie. Love that movie. So yeah, that is your homework. All right. Awesome. Well, thank you, Carmen, for joining us today. I'm sure

Carmen (56:24)

Horse.

Lianne Shinton (56:25)

that this will help somebody out there, be it a dog trainer or a pet owner, to hopefully avoid this.

Carmen (56:29)

Yep. And you know, if you do have

trainers that wanna kind of go dive down into loss pre prevention and what have you, I I've worked with a variety of companies and I'm happy to help you structure something for, you know, your organizations as well, whether that be two people or, you know, I've I've worked with some of the larger, you know, app based dog walking organizations, rolling it out to thousands. So we can kind of get you on the right path.

Lianne Shinton (56:54)

So like helping them have like SOPs in place a plan.

Carmen (56:57)

Right,

right. At the twenty four hours do this, at the thirty six hours do this. And again, pet parents are always gonna react differently. Some are gonna be very understanding 'cause it really can't happen to anybody at any time. And then you're gonna have people who are like, Okay, I'm calling my attorney and so that way you're you know, you have something to present and to work with so legal action can be avoided, ideally.

Lianne Shinton (57:19)

Yeah, and I think too like a big thing for me is I try to have a relationship with my clients where

Carmen (57:25)

Right.

Lianne Shinton (57:25)

there's so much trust and good communication so that if something bad happens, I can make that phone call and we can talk through it and work together. but

Carmen (57:38)

Right.

Lianne Shinton (57:39)

yeah, maybe like not taking on clients that are giving you that red flag vibe where they

Carmen (57:46)

Yes.

Lianne Shinton (57:47)

Have a lot of I wanna see your contract and what happens if this happens and yeah.

Carmen (57:51)

a hundred percent. Yes. Yep. I and

I I get that too. Like, you know, that's something me and Megan have worked out. If she thinks it's gonna be, you know, if it's gonna they're gonna be too much per

Lianne Shinton (57:58)

Risky.

Carmen (57:59)

se, we back out as, you know, politely per se as we can. But per some personality types just don't click and don't mesh. And, you know, if at the end the day they might be better suited to work with somebody else to help them bring him over home, then that is a hundred percent a route we are okay with taking.

Lianne Shinton (58:20)

Yeah, yeah, for your sanity. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Carmen, for sharing.

Carmen (58:25)

Course.

Lianne Shinton (58:26)

I hope that you listeners got something from this. that yeah, so much, so much to unpack. I just really,

Carmen (58:34)

Ha ha ha.

Lianne Shinton (58:35)

really enjoyed learning about all of this. So thank you for sharing with us today, Carmen.

Carmen (58:39)

Of course, happy to.

Lianne Shinton (58:41)

awesome. And again, I'm Leanne Shinton from Automation Talks, and thanks for listening.