Rhody Pets: A Cumberland Tracker’s Advice for Finding Fido

While any dutiful pet family takes precautions to ensure their cat or dog never wanders far from the pack, it’s hard not to fret over what to do if our furry friends run away from home. When it does happen, go-to steps are likely posting lost pet signs, sharing on social media, and calling local animal control officers and shelters – and while these are all good first responses, some situations call for the help of a professional pet tracker.

Enter Jamie Genereux and his Black Lab Tigger – living examples of the old adage that some heroes don’t wear capes. Through his Cumberland-based business Packleader PetTrackers, Genereux uses visual tracking to look for physical clues in the surrounding environment where the pet has gone missing, along with other fine-tuned methods.

“Trigger and I had been part of the Rhode Island Canine Search & Rescue (SAR) team,” shares Genereux, who first got into winter tracking at age 14, a passion that snowballed into starting his own business in 2010. “Trigger was just six months old when he obtained his AKC Good Citizenship certification and at that point, we’d already spent several months training in off-leash and air-scenting with the wilderness SAR team.” Genereux soon realized that scent-specific trailing was Trigger’s forte. Now his staff also includes two other canine employees: Dexter and Slim.

“There are so many [rescues] that mean so much and have blown me away,” says Genereux, but one that particularly resonates was the story of Roxy, a pup who wound up stuck in a 10-foot hole on the beach as her owners relentlessly searched the area. “She seemed to vanish into thin air. I’ll never forget the look on Roxy’s face as I pulled her out of that hole alive and well.”

With the holidays upon us, make sure skittish kitties and overly excited pups are acclimated to guests visiting your home before hosting a big gathering to get ahead of an escape, but in the event of a four-legged family member getting loose, here’s Genereux’s advice.

ACT FAST: Time is of the essence when a pet goes missing. Though circumstances can vary, according to Genereux, “For most missing pets, the best initial step an owner can take is to set up a feeding station – an outdoor camera baited with food – and call me right away.”

ASK THE PROS: Once the bat signal is activated on social media for a runaway, owners can be flooded with conflicting advice. “Many have told me they realized during the search process that even though they’d been given a ton of seemingly helpful information, they somehow still didn’t have the right information or any at all about services like ours,” says Genereux. “Even worse, they followed bad information they later learned had set back their search.”

BE PROACTIVE: Packleaders PetTrackers offers a range of options, from trailing K9s to thermal drone technology with high-powered zoom lenses and other technology. Says Genereux, “Setting up a camera and feeding station early on and using search dogs or a thermal drone can help shorten the amount of time your pet is lost, giving the pet a better chance of getting home faster and in good shape.”

Packleaders PetTrackers

787-7432  |  PackleaderPetTrackers.com