Chapter 38
Coordinating Spontaneous Teams
In the search for a lost pet, or when attempting to help a stray cat or dog, you will need to work with people who have a wide variety of personalities, backgrounds, and skills. If you are lucky, everyone wanting to help will be competent and qualified. In a typical situation, your search effort is bound to attract someone that thinks they are an expert, but in fact will take all of the wrong approaches, hurting the search effort. Whether you are the pet’s owner, or someone trying to help the lost pet, as a professional or a volunteer, you need to have a strategy for getting people working together, effectively, toward a common goal.
Write it down.
Get to know your team and their strengths.
Assign specific tasks.
Beware of cowboys and mavericks.
Keep everyone safe.
Avoid getting certain types of help in certain situations.
Have a communication plan.
Have backup plans.
Write it down.
Keep notes about every aspect of your search for a lost or stray pet. Whether you are a professional or volunteer helping the pet owner, or if you are the pet owner, keep track of details. Get names and numbers of people who want to volunteer. If you get a reported sighting, write down the details before you run off to pursue the lead. Every phone has the capacity to record voice memos, or you can do voice to text. Keep a pen and paper with you. Take pictures or video of potential evidence or clues, such as if you find fur or disturbed vegetation. Take pictures of other lost pet fliers in the area, in case you may wish to coordinate with them and share information. One way of keeping written notes about a search is to create a Facebook group for the lost cat or dog. That way, when people comment, it is written down for you.
Write down your plan, of who is going where and doing what. Don’t rely on your memory. Things happen quickly and new information can change the plan. You need to know who is where, doing what, so you can shift resources to follow the new lead. Write down or record where you put signs, which houses you talked to, where you set a trap and camera. Keep a list of reported sightings, and map them out if you can. If you are not in a position to write everything down and keep track of everything, then appoint a person to take on that task and report to you.
Get to know your team and their strengths.
In the search for a lost pet, you will get volunteers with varying amounts of experience. Even if some people have a large amount of experience, it could be the wrong kind of experience, or not relevant to your situation. Also, what is their technological proficiency? It really makes a difference if someone has a high-end smart phone and really knows how to use it. Do people know how to navigate terrain and keep track of which way is north? Some people really aren’t good at maps and directions. Be sure people know you are operating under the principles found in Three Retrievers Guide to Finding Your Lost Dog, Three Retrievers Guide to Finding Your Lost Cat, or the UBS First Responders’ Handbook. If someone has other plans for finding the lost pet, you need to prevent them from interfering with your search.
Cowboys and mavericks.
One person going off script can undermine the entire search effort. Back before we had cellular trail cameras, we would regularly ask volunteers NOT to go check the trap set for a dog too often because that could scare the dog away. Invariably, some volunteer would go check it frequently, or just hang out near the trap, waiting. Now that we have reliable cameras that tell us when the dog goes in, it’s easier to convince people to stay away from the trap. A big issue is getting people not to call the name of a lost dog or chase after a lost dog. How do you handle someone who won’t follow instructions? It can be hard. I try to reason with them and explain why we work the way we do. You can’t always get through to people. Sometimes you just have to wait until they are done failing and get tired and go home, and then you can get back to the plan.
Assign specific tasks.
Whether they are family members or kind strangers, be sure that everyone is assigned a specific job and understands their role. One key position is the communication coordinator. In Community Emergency Response Teams, the key person is called the Incident Commander. This person does not necessarily need to be an expert in all things related to finding lost pets, but they are in charge of communication and making sure everyone sticks to their task. When I am involved with a search, I am the one with the most expertise and experience, but quite often it wouldn’t make sense for me to be the Incident Commander. My skills are usually needed with the search dog or with the traps and cameras, so I can’t always be available for communication. If you are the owner of a lost pet, you will probably be tired, distracted, worried, frustrated, and have a hard time focusing or remembering details. If that’s the case, you need to appoint a friend or family member to be in charge of communications and coordination. You can still make key decisions, but they will be responsible for making sure tasks are implemented.
Keep everyone safe.
Lost pets often go places they shouldn’t, and this can put humans at risk. Lost cats almost always go across private property. Some property owners are annoyed, and some don’t care if a cat is wandering through their yard. However, a pet owner or a searcher can’t just go wandering around people’s yards, looking under everything. That can lead to potentially dangerous conflicts. Be sure you have permission to search. The other main danger to searches is traffic. Specifically, dogs in flight mode will run into traffic to evade people on foot. If they survive, it’s a genius tactic. Dogs can be conditioned that running into traffic keeps them safe (from their perspective) because it stops foot pursuits. Obviously this is very dangerous for the person and the dog. You should never chase a dog anyway, but especially don’t chase them into traffic. There are some neighborhoods where a pet could be lost, which are not generally safe for humans. It may be best to go in pairs in some areas. Wilderness areas require that you plan ahead, know the terrain, have good maps, and bring proper equipment. Make sure everyone on your team is properly prepared.
Types of help to avoid, sometimes.
There are situations where it may be best not to call the police or animal control. Although they can be helpful in a variety of situations, in some cases their priorities could put the dog at unnecessary risk. As an example, a large dog was hiding out in the median of a freeway. I asked people not to call State Patrol, but someone did. They had good intentions, but once the police officer arrived, he pretty much had to kick everyone out of the median. His job is human safety, and dogs are a lower priority. Also, he called animal control. They couldn’t just leave the dog there and let the humane trap work. For the safety of humans, they felt compelled to go into the brush and grab the dog. They almost got him killed.
Police officers have been very helpful in some cases, but I think in most cases I would not call police for assistance with a lost dog. They generally don’t have the training or the tools to help effectively, and their priorities necessarily put humans first, even if that’s not what’s best for the dog.
Have a communication plan.
You should probably have a group text message for everyone in the search party. If you do, be sure to tell people to keep the chatter down. They should only be using the group for relevant information or urgent questions. It can be helpful to have a Facebook group to share information. This also makes it easier for people to have side communications with individuals and not demand the attention of the whole group. There will be times when you are out of the range of cell towers, and you need to use radios. If you don’t have 2-way radios, you need to, at a minimum, coordinate a time and place to meet, to make sure everyone’s okay and see what they found out. One person needs to be in charge of coordinating communication, and if they need to leave that post, there needs to be a designated person ready to take over. Miscommunication, or a lack of communication, can waste time and be unsafe. Also, it usually reduces the odds that the lost pet will be recovered safely. Who is in charge, what is the primary mode of communication, what types of communication are appropriate, and what is the backup plan for communications?
Backup plans.
When searching for a lost pet, or trying to capture a stray, there are many unknowns, and you have to plan for all scenarios. For example, if a dog is lost, that dog could be deceased, at the shelter, in the ravine, wandering miles away, wandering close, or sleeping on someone’s couch at that moment. For each scenario, there are tools that would be most effective under those circumstances. A search dog can’t find a dog that’s already at the shelter, and checking the shelter won’t help if the lost dog is hiding in a ravine. The total plan for finding a pet should include all of the ways that have a reasonable chance of success. The search dog follows the scent trail while other volunteers knock on doors, others put up signs, and others check shelters. In addition, you need backup plans for when the situation changes or a particular strategy has clearly failed. If you set a humane trap, and the dog triggers the door before he’s all the way in, and he gets out, then the humane trap will not be a useful strategy any more. You need to shift team members to other assignments, such as getting the large kennel trap set up, if available. Another example is, if you can’t get permission to access a critical piece of property, then what is the option? Can you try to pick up the scent trail on the other side? Maybe have volunteers watching from the perimeter? As the search evolves, team members need to adjust their roles and communicate with everyone about the new plan.
Please see these articles for more information and examples of coordinating spontaneous teams.
Boots on the Ground. This includes the story of catching Viktor, which is a long story, but definitely relavent and worth the read if you have time.
When not to call animal control.
Sophie. A coordinated plan with volunteers, in which everything went wrong.