Pet missing? Who you gonna call?

Kare Romanski is a pet detective. The Cabarrus County animal lover started a nonprofit search and recovery business for missing pets in 2006.

The idea for the business, Missing Pet Recovery Services, came to her after an incident she learned of in Dilworth in 2005. A pack of loose pit bulls roamed the area threatening the residents, according to Romanski.

"They basically shut down Dilworth for several months. Adults and children were bitten," Romanski said.
After that incident she began to notice loose dogs all around town.

"I thought this was horrible, and it's going to be a problem," she said. "Where do they all come from?"

Ninety percent of lost dogs in shelters are lost pets, according to Romanski.

Dogs can travel up to 10 miles a day when on the run, she explained.

Thinking she could make a difference by helping to find lost pets, her goal became the establishment of Missing Pet Recovery Services.

Through the use of high tech surveillance equipment, GPS and trained search and recovery dogs, Romanski helps find missing pets for owners who have hit a dead end.

"I have trained search and recovery dogs specifically to follow pets," Romanski said. "These are dogs that have come from horrible backgrounds. I rehabilitate them by giving them a job and training them. I am a certified animal dog behavior trainer."

Romanski claims to have hundreds of success stories, and only accepts donations for her time to help cover the costs of the search.

"I tell people it takes a village to find a lost dog. So what I do is help them create that village. We canvas really heavily, we'll use a service called "Find Toto," if it's a dog that has possibly been picked up and taken out of the area," Romanski said. "The Waltrip's dog is one such case I was called on."

Her service was used in the initial search the day the dog went missing. Her search dogs found the scent from the missing dog went dead at a driveway of a house that was being remodeled in the neighborhood. No one one was living there at the time.

"My first guess was probably someone from the construction crew had taken the dog. Lo and behold, the gentleman lived in Charlotte over an hour away. I don't give up on cases. I have different strategies to employ depending if the dog is still roaming the area or not."

She claims to have a better that 80 percent success rate on her cases.

"I ask for a scent article, usually bedding collar or anything they have. That's what my dogs start their track on," Romanski said. "Usually they know the point of origin where the dog went missing from, so it makes an easy initial track. We can track things up to three months old, but it's easiest if we can get there in the first three weeks."

Lisa Reid is a believer in what Romanski can accomplish. She owns Great Dane Rescue of the Carolinas, and has used Romanski several times to find missing pets for clients and herself.

"It's amazing. I don't know how she does it," Reid said.

Occasionally, a pet that's been adopted through the rescue will get away from it's new owner, one of the volunteers from the rescue recommended Romanski to the Reids for help with the recovery.

"The part that amazes me most about Karen is when she found our black cat. Who can find a black cat out in Huntersville in the country, and she found him in someones barn," Reid said.

Pursing lost pets has its ups and downs.

"I have ended up in the backseat of a lot of police cars," Romanski said.

She is member of the North Carolina Police Dogs Association, and trains along side law enforcement.

People have called law enforcement to report her as a trespasser or suspicious person. It helps when they find out what she is doing and why she is in the area.

Not all her cases have a happy reunion at the end; sometimes the search leads to bad news.
"At least we are able to give these people closure," Romanski said.

A production company out of Henderson has approached her about a television series that follows her on various pet recovery cases. The series is being shopped to Discovery Channel and Animal Planet.

"Through education we can work towards prevention," Romanski said.

Owners must be proactive before your dog goes missing. Ninety eight percent of missing pets are human error, according to Romanski.

"Service person left the gate unlocked, the kids were in a hurry, it just got out when I opened the door," Romanski said.

She also recommends keeping a scent article of your pets in the freezer in case the pet goes missing so it can be tracked, and of course equipping your pet with a micro chip that can be used to identify owners if the dog is found.

What people don't understand about the micro chip is that it has to be registered online for it to be effective. She also recommends micro chipping through Animal Control, because they keep their own database.

"Most times dogs are still in the county," Romanski said.

Romanski will be having a micro chip clinic July 4 at her new facility. The cost will be $10.

"My goal is to help people think differently about stray pets, and to establish community based recovery programs," Romanski said.

For more information to volunteer or to donate go to their Web site at: www.missingpetrecoveryservices.org.