Kenny

His AirTag was having trouble connecting.

I have an Apple AirTag on my dogs Fozzie and Sky. I have a Whistle tracker on Raven because I am concerned she might run farther and faster, so the GPS tracker would be more helpful. One nice thing about an Apple AirTag is that the battery can last for a year, which is very convenient. Another nice thing is that it is very small, really the size of an ID tag, so you can put one on a cat, if your cat will tolerate a collar. Fozzie is allowed to go into the bushes for three minutes. Any longer than that, and I go in after him. Even with his coyote vest on, I worry about him. The AirTag can have trouble connecting if he is around the corner of the house or over the slope of the hill. I have been contacted by at least a dozen people who have AirTags on their dogs and cats, and they still wanted my help because the AirTag was out of range or not connecting. The AirTag is better than nothing, but it has its limits.

I received the call about Kenny, a very large cat, maybe 23 pounds. He is friendly, and he wanders around the apartment complex. His owner was worried because he hadn’t been seen in a couple of days. The AirTag said he was generally in an area, but when she went there, it wouldn’t give the exact location. When I use my iPhone to locate Fozzie, or my keys, it usually pinpoints exactly where the AirTag is. Based on what people have reported to me, I think the AirTag can fail to connect or fail to give a location when the cat is under a building. Kenny had gone into a crawlspace under one of the apartment buildings before. His owner had the maintenance worker go down there and check, but he didn’t see Kenny. I suggested that she have him go into the crawl space again, but carrying her phone with the app running, to see if it could connect to the tag. That didn’t work, so she wanted me to bring Raphael out to search.

Raphi and I arrived at 8 AM and started the search. Kenny’s owner sent me an invitation to search for Kenny’s AirTag, and this allowed me to pull it up in the Find My app. The app said Kenny was somewhere around one of the buildings, but not in a specific location. Raphi was also very interested. There were several decks he could have been hiding under, where Raphi was interested, but I looked and didn’t see him. Under those decks, there were vents for the crawl space. It was possible he was in the crawl space and Raphi was catching the scent coming from the vents. As we worked around the building, I happened to see a man with a cart full of tools. I asked him if he could let Raphael and me into the crawl space to search for the lost cat. I explained that a tennant had hired us to search for her cat. He said, “Oh. I didn’t know that was a thing.” I get that a lot. He took us through a couple of doors and down into the crawl space. It was really the nicest crawl space I had ever been in, with a concrete floor, mostly, and almost tall enough to stand in. I didn’t see any spiders or carcasses of small animals, like in some crawl spaces. Not quite a full basement, but definitely better than I was expecting

When we went in, Raphi started sniffing upward, like the scent was in the joists and beams. The app also thought Kenny was around, but not in a specific direction. Raphi took me to a spot where a cat had peed on the floor, which was a good sign. He seemed to indicate the scent was getting weaker. We turned around and went to a different section of the crawl space, and Raphi and the iPhone app both perked up, saying Kenny was near. Raphi and the app were in a race to see who would find Kenny faster. It was about a tie, as the dog and the app both directed me right to a wall on the north side of the crawl space, and I could see a tabby tail hanging down from the top of the concrete wall. Raphi definitely picked up a large pool of cat scent, and he was sniffing and snorting all over that corner of the basement. I pulled him away before he could actually pinpoint the cat with his eyes, up on the wall, because I didn’t want Kenny to panic.

I asked the maintenance worker to tell the cat’s owner that we had found Kenny, so she could come down and get him. He seemed perfectly healthy and happy. I praised Raphi and took him back to the car, so that Kenny wouldn’t get nervous as he was carried home. The owner carried him home wrapped inside her jacket, and Kenny seemed happy and unconcerned that he had been lost for a few days.

If you have an AirTag on your cat and you are getting an intermittent signal that doesn’t give an exact direction, try looking under buildings and under cars. Get your phone close to crawl spaces. Keep moving your phone around to try to get a stronger signal. If you find a crawl space vent missing the screen, stick your phone into the crawl space, being careful not to drop it, to see if the AirTag will connect. If you are going to put an AirTag on your cat, which is definitely better than nothing, please consider upgrading to an actual GPS tracker. The Whistle tracker I use on Raven is not 100% foolproof, but it generally works, most of the time. It is a bit bulkier than an AirTag. If you have a 23 pound cat like Kenny, then it’s basically the size of a small dog, and a Whistle tracker shouldn’t be too cumbersome.

After the search, Raphael and Valentino and I went to Magnuson Park to play. Raphi ran all over the park, chasing and being chased. He was the fasted dog, and no other dog could keep up. He splashed in the water, running back and forth in the shallow waves. After our romp in the park, the boys had frozen yogurt as a treat. It was a very good day for Raphael, getting to find the lost cat, fairly quickly, then playing for a long time and cooling off in the lake, then getting a frozen yogurt treat. Although I miss working with Mu, I love Raphi, and he is doing an excellent job. I look forward to working with him for about ten years, and he will have a great career.