HELP!!!  MY DOG IS LOST!

Prevention:  Take pictures and write a description detailing the special characteristics of your pet - IN ADVANCE.

Microchip or tattoo your dog: Be sure the dog is wearing a license and identification tag. These id's are you pet's "ticket home." Include your home, your work and a neighbor's phone number if possible.) If you are traveling with or boarding your pet, add a tag with your temporary address and destination.

Pets With Identification:  Are kept longer at shelters; Are more likely to be treated by a veterinarian; May be helped by individuals who wouldn't otherwise assume that the animal is lost and might be reluctant to take on the responsibility and expense of trying to locate the owner.

Keep your pet confined in a secure fenced yard or enclosed kennel. 

Don't leave animals in cars where they can escape or become overheated
 . 
Take your dog to Obedience Classes. Obedience classes can help you have a well-mannered dog who comes when called and is fun to walk on a leash.

Spay or neuter your pets.  A spayed or neutered pet is less likely to wander. Veterinarians have found that neutered animals live longer, healthier lives. They are better companions and can't contribute to the birth of homeless, unwanted puppies and kittens.

Buy binoculars! 
Keep a loud squeaker from a favorite toy.
Keep a pound of frozen gizzards/hearts and stew beef (raw, cut w/kitchen shears in half size pieces) 

If it Happens . . . Don't delay! Start a search of your neighborhood, walking slowly and calling your pet. The best times may be late in the evening or early in the morning, when streets are quiet and the animal may come out of hiding. Check basements, closets, attics and other out of the way places, and under bushes.

Offer a Reward
Make posters with a large photo and put them up everywhere.
Make sure all posters can be easily read from a passing car. Put a brief description 
and your phone number in large clear letters. 
Include Reward Information
Post posters in a 20-block area. (Ask permission to post in stores, etc. and remove posters when you find your animal.)
Post in feed stores, pet stores, local animal shelters, tractor shops.

Leave flyers at all veterinarians, animal emergency clinics, and shelters.

Place a Lost Pet ad in the local newspapers and in the newspapers of surrounding communities.

If you've moved recently, look in your old neighborhood and post lost notices there, too. Ask your former neighbors to be on the lookout for your dog.

Contact utility workers, local law, vets, newsboys, postmen, road construction and maintenance workers, etc., people who are out on the street as part of their daily job. 
(One caution: talking directly to children can be touchy. This is often a ploy used by child molesters/abductors. Limit your conversations to adults concerning a lost dog.) - Perhaps notify schools and ask the administration to put up posters and ask the children to be on the alert.

If you can get a poster to the bus barn so the school bus drivers can see it-they cover a lot of territory.
Check back frequently with folks to whom you have given posters and with whom you have talked.
Remember local newspapers and businesses, hair salons, and drive in groceries get a lot of traffic.
Go to nearby communities, as well, and expand the poster exposure
Leave food and clothes or blanket with your scent on it near where the dog was last seen or if the dog escaped from your yard, there.
Notify every animal shelter in a wide radius and contact them personally every day, multiple times a day. If possible go in person and look. Don't depend on them to call you.
If the lost dog is a male, particularly an intact male, if you can find a bitch in season, the dog may be attracted to her.

If your dog has a dog buddy, bring the dog buddy along when you are looking.

Try to locate a trained tracking dog. You may have to cry, beg and plead. People do not like to use their dogs on other dogs because it confuses them for searching for people, bur if you BEG, they will usually help. 

People on horse back are helpful also. Bring other dogs with you if at all possible. If you have a dog you can trust off lead, use the trained dog in the hunt.. A dog will come to another dog and the trained one can be called in and likely the lost dog will follow for treats.

DO NOT STOP LOOKING!!!
 Borzoi will sometimes go feral very quickly particularly if loose in a rural area. Some are having fun!! Remember, they can feed themselves. Others are truly lost and want nothing more than to find their owners, at least once the thrill is over.

Keep in mind that people often keep an animal for several days or even weeks, hoping to find the owner, before turning it in to a shelter

If you are reading this page because your dog is lost, we send you our prayers for a safe return and wish you good luck.