About Three Retrievers

Because I’m starting a new newsletter, I suppose I should introduce myself for those who aren’t familiar with my work.  Dogs are my life, these days.  I work with Wakomu and Valentino, who are search dogs.  Mu finds cats and Tino finds dogs.  Three Retrievers Lost Pet Rescue is a company I started in 2012.  People contact us about a thousand times a year to help find their lost pets.  I provide advice on the best ways to find lost cats and dogs, and we conduct about 120 searches each year using the scent dogs.  I also founded a nonprofit for stray dogs in 2013, and we help about 100 lost dogs every year through that 501c3 charity, Useless Bay Sanctuary.  In 2014, I started a Facebook Group called Lost Dogs of King County, which now has 26,000 members.  The group helps reunite more than 4,000 dogs every year in the Seattle area.  I have written several books about lost dogs and cats, available on Amazon.  Our Three Retrievers web page has a wealth of information and ideas for finding lost pets, and it receives more than 80,000 page views each year as people search for ways to find lost pets.  Another key metric is that I  have 112,714 photos and videos on my iPhone at this moment, and at least 90% of those are of dogs.  Actually, maybe 50% of those pictures are of Tino because he is very photogenic and likes having his picture taken.  On average, I work at least 100 hours a week helping lost pets, either for Three Retrievers, Useless Bay Sanctuary, or Lost Dogs of King County.  Although our company is called Three Retrievers, I actually have five dogs, none of whom are retrievers breed-wise.  Mu, a Rottweiler pit bull mix, and Tino, a Gerberian Shepsky, are retrievers in the sense that they retrieve lost pets.  Fozzie, the little white poodlish dog, also worked as a search dog for several years before he retired.  Sky and Victor eat and sleep, and are quite good at it.  I am with dogs 24/7, except for the short time when I’m in the grocery store.

The reason I started all of this is Kelsy.  I saw her picture when she was a puppy at the shelter, available for adoption.  I drove 100 miles to get her, and for 11 years she was the best dog in the world.  When Kelsy was 3, we went to the off leash park, our favorite place, and I saw a notice on the kiosk. Kat Albrecht was offering training, teaching people how to use their dogs to search for lost cats and dogs.  Immediately, I knew that’s what I wanted to do with Kelsy, and we started training right away.  Albrecht was offering the training through a nonprofit she had started, Missing Pet Partnership.  Kelsy and I started as volunteers in 2008.  Within a couple of years, Kelsy was the main search dog for the nonprofit, and I had been elected president of its board of directors.  Kat Albrecht pioneered most of the techniques and tools I use today.  Before she started using her bloodhound to find lost pets, no one really offered this sort of service.  I am very fortunate that Kelsy and I saw her flier that day.

By 2012, word had gotten around that people who had lost their cats and dogs could use a search dog to find them.  The demand was so great that I quit my job in construction and remodeling so I could work full time finding lost pets. I started Three Retrievers Lost Pet Rescue, not necessarily as a way to make money, but as a way to have a steady(ish) income while helping as many lost cats and dogs as possible.  From the first year, I believe we had over 700 requests for help.  This year, I’m sure it’s well over 1,000 requests.  I try to help as many as I can with advice and search dogs and equipment rentals.  Our web page is full of good information and tips on how to find lost cats and dogs, for those that I can’t get back to very quickly.  We typically search within a 60 mile radius of SeaTac Airport, although on some occasions we have driven as far as the Central Oregon Coast and near the Canadian border.

Because people knew that I helped lost dogs, I would often get calls for stray dogs that had no known owner.  Fozzie was seen running down the freeway by the airport, not far from my house, and Mu and I went to see if we could help him.  We caught him in a humane trap.  Because he was found on the freeway that separated two jurisdictions, Burien and Regional Animal Services of King County, I was reluctant to take him to either shelter because I would have a fifty fifty chance of taken him to the wrong shelter, where his people wouldn’t be looking for him.  Instead, I reported him to both shelters, and took him home. (It wasn’t just because he was irresistibly cute and sweet.)  I spent two months putting up posters and checking various online listings for anyone searching for him, but it seemed no one wanted him.  It was particularly odd because he is such a great dog, happy, funny, and absolutely no trouble.  Well, mostly no trouble.  He did have a desire to go tearing around the neighborhood, and he escaped from me several times.  When no one came forward to claim him after a few months, I was happy to give him a forever home.  He even started training to find lost dogs, which he was very good at.  I found quite a few other stray dogs besides Fozzie.  Most of them were returned to their owners pretty quickly, and some went to the shelters.  It became apparent that many stray dogs were needing help, and that traditional rescues and shelters often didn’t have the techniques, tools, and approaches that work best for certain stray dogs.  In 2013 I founded Useless Bay Sanctuary in order to establish a nonprofit uniquely geared for helping stray dogs, as opposed to lost dogs whose owners were looking for them.  My work with UBS resulted in three of my current dogs coming to our home, Sky, Viktor, and Valentino.

So, that’s what I do.  I help lost cats and dogs, all day, every day.  As for why I keep doing it, 100 hours a week, it’s because I love animals.  At least 100 pets are reported missing every day in Western Washington, creating a huge demand for assistance.  The main reason I do this work is because of Kelsy.  She got me started in this, and she was my main search dog for 8 good years, and I really enjoyed working with her.  I also knew that if she went missing, I would want an experienced and skilled team to help me search for her.  Having lost her to cancer at age 11, and knowing how much I miss her every day, I certainly sympathize with people who come to me for help in finding their lost family members.  I will tell more stories about Kelsy in future newsletters, as well as reporting on the searches by Mu and Tino, and helping stray dogs through UBS.

If you are currently in need of help for your lost cat or dog, please visit our web page and fill out the contact form.  Although we won’t be able to help everyone, we try to help as many as we can.

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