The Logic of Emotion

Using our passion for animals to drive a thoughtful and reasonable course of action.

The Logic of Emotion

When people come to us for help finding their lost cats or dogs, it is very common for them to be upset, crying frequently.  I can hear that it is difficult for them to say the words, “My dog is missing,” or, “I can’t find my cat.”  I understand that you have lost something more than a possession, or simply an item of some quantifiable value. You have lost a family member.  I know this because my dogs are the most important thing in the world to me.  They are my life.  You could say that dogs are the center of my world, but they pretty much permeate my entire world, right out to the edges.  Also, I have lost pets in the past, so I am all too familiar with the panic, fear, guilt, and grief people may be experiencing.  When trying to help people find their pets, I always want to acknowledge how they feel, but it is my job to help your dog or cat in the best way I know how.  I will try to focus our conversation on concrete steps you can take to find your pet.  I don’t mean to minimize your emotions.  Our emotions about our dogs and cats are why I do this work and why it is so important for you to get your family member back.  I want to recognize those feelings, but channel your thoughts into the actions you can take that give your pet the best chance of coming home.

Many years ago, I was trying to help a woman find her lost cat.  She was very upset, and she had trouble talking to me about the circumstances around the disappearance.  In the days since she had lost her cat, she had been so distracted by her grief that she got into a car accident and totaled her car.  She couldn’t work or eat or sleep.  The anxiety had taken over her life.  I thought we had a pretty good chance of finding her cat.  I tried to explain the many methods of finding a lost cat, other than the search dog, but she could not focus, and she was incapacitated, incapable of carrying out any plan I might suggest.  I told her I could bring the search dog, and we would have a reasonable chance.  She said we should give it a try.  After we had searched just a few yards, she asked us to stop because she just couldn’t deal with it any more. I told her I understood, and Mu and I went home.  I really hoped her cat would come home, but because I never heard from her again, I’m guessing she did not find her cat.  I really did understand how she felt, and I know I would share the same feelings in her situation.  I would hope that I could get past my anxiety and do the hard work it can sometimes take to recover a lost pet.

The average search for a lost pet will require the owner to put in 80 hours of work during the first week of the disappearance.  I know this from my experience with helping thousands of pet owners, and I also know this from the time I lost my own dog, Viktor.  When Viktor came to us as a foster (yeah, right), I knew he was an extreme flight risk.  We caught him after he had been wandering for five weeks, covering about 100 square miles from Everett to Seattle.  Viktor didn’t dislike me, but he was profoundly indifferent, no matter how much I loved him.  I would not say we had formed a bond. I made sure to have a GPS tracker on him, knowing that he was seeking any opportunity to escape.  Unfortunately, that particular GPS unit, which had worked before, was not working despite an entire week of struggling with technical support to get it working.  When Viktor escaped by prying boards off an old cat door, which I was shocked he could even fit through, I was devastated at the loss. I also knew he could be very hard to catch.  I felt confident we would catch him, though.  From the beginning of my efforts to catch Viktor, I kept track of everything we did, including how many hours of work it took, from myself and from about a dozen volunteers who helped.  I spent 80 hours during those 7 days, actively working on ways to catch Viktor.  Other volunteers invested at least 120 hours that I documented.  You can read about Viktor, and how we caught him both times, in A Voice for The Lost, available from Amazon.  During those 7 days that Viktor was missing, I was very emotional for a lot of reasons.  Not least of which, I am an expert on finding lost pets, and on loss prevention, and this was a huge failure.  If I never caught Viktor, of course the main downside of that would be the high likelihood of him being hit by a car or starving to death.  It would also have been a huge blow to my confidence in helping others with their lost pets if I couldn’t find my own dog. Although the stakes were very high, about as high as they could possibly be, I followed my own advice of not panicking.  I controlled my emotions by focusing on the actions I could take, by sticking to the list of tasks and following proven procedures.  I knew, logically, that I stood an excellent chance of finding and capturing Viktor if I could just stick to what had worked for thousands of lost dogs in the past.  When finally I was able to pounce on Viktor and tackle him, even though he bit me in a reflexive response, I was so happy to hold him tight in my arms, safe at last.

I do this work because of my love of Kelsy.  Mu finds lost cats and Tino finds lost dogs because of Kelsy, because I loved being with her and wanted to work with her as her partner.  I did not start learning to find lost pets because there is a huge need for it (there is), or because it makes economic sense to rescue lost pets as quickly and efficiently as possible, to avoid other, larger costs to individuals and to society.  I did not get into this work as a means of making money. Kelsy and I got started learning to find lost dogs because I wanted to work with her, as search dog and handler, to have that special bond.  Kelsy and I worked together for 8 years, and we saved the lives of dozens of missing dogs.  I really enjoyed working with her, and I was so proud of her good work.  Kelsy died 5 years ago, at age 11, from cancer.  Since she has died, I have thought of her every single day.  Although I do still feel grief at the loss of her, I mostly just enjoy thinking about her, remembering her.  I can remember most of the searches we went on together, and times we just goofed around or hiked or did nothing.  If I had any trouble remembering her, I could simply look at my thousands of pictures and videos of her, or read the fiction and nonfiction stories I’ve written about her.  With no trouble at all, I can visualize Kelsy right here beside me now.  I can remember the way her fur felt, different from any of my current dogs.  I can picture the way she would look at me, expectantly, wondering when our next adventure would begin.  If you come to me for help, and you want me to understand just how much you love your cat or dog, how much they mean to you, how much you miss them, I can definitely relate.  I know what it’s like to lose the most important thing in your life, how it makes you feel that a part of you has died.  If you come to me for help, even if I deeply sympathize with your loss and your fear and panic, I can’t let our conversation focus on those emotions.  I want to recognize how you feel, and not minimize it, but if you feel such deep emotions about your lost cat or dog, it is all the more important that we focus on the sensible, logical actions we should be taking.  If I redirect our conversation away from your loss and grief, I hope I never do so in an abrupt or uncaring manner.  I want to help, and the best way I can help is by giving you the best advice and assistance, based on what we know has worked in thousands of cases.

I love dogs.  I love cats, too, even though my life is dominated by dogs right now.  People, well....  Humans are not my favorite species on this planet.  They don’t even rank in the top ten.  In general, I find people difficult to understand, and given a choice, I would avoid people as much as possible.  The one aspect of dealing with humans that I do actually enjoy is that they provide an opportunity to talk about dogs.  I mean, I can’t really talk to my dogs about how much I love them and how important they are to me.  That would just annoy them.  To have a really good conversation about a dog, you need to talk to a person, ironically.  Because I love dogs and cats, and because I have dedicated my life to helping them, that means that I must spend my day talking to people.  Talking to people is not the easiest thing for me, and it tends to drain the energy from me.  My phone rings a dozen times a day, at least, and it is almost always someone experiencing one of the worst days of her life.  People who call me have either been crying recently, are on the verge of crying at any moment, or they are actually crying while talking to me.  It is as if they have lost a child, which in many ways they have.  To deal with that much raw emotion on a daily basis is difficult for me. It takes a toll.  I try to focus my mind on the positive good I can do, and I try not to let it get me down that I am continually mired in the grief of others.

In the summer of 2020, Mu began having severe anxiety about going on searches for lost cats.  This started happening after a string of cases where Mu found remains of the lost cat and the owners were overcome with grief. After happily jumping in the car for 8 years to go on cat searches, Mu became reluctant to get in the car.  If I did coax him into the car, he would tremble and pant, and he was obviously uncomfortable for almost the entire ride to the search.  I took him to the vet to try to rule out any health issues, and the doctor said he seemed fine physically.  She suggested what I had already suspected, that it was my mood and attitude that was causing Mu’s anxiety.  Although I didn’t think I was acting any differently, Mu must have sensed some change. Mu and I are deeply bonded, as you can imagine.  It is my job to read him.  I have to observe his body language and know if he is responding to a cat, or to evidence of a predator attack on a cat.  If Mu’s not happy, then I’m not happy.  I didn’t think Mu cared so much about how I feel.  If he did, he might not bite my fingers when I give him treats.  Because of Mu’s anxiety, he took a sabbatical from finding cats.  I decided that he would retire if we couldn’t get him past this anxiety.  To try to work through it, we started going on adventures in the car that were strictly fun, no work.  Mu and I also went to weekly training, where he was assured of finding the cat happy and healthy.  Training day is the most fun day of the week, where Mu gets to find live cats every time, and he sees his friends and gets lots of treats.  After six months of only having fun adventures, Mu started to work again.  As he returned to work, I made sure to police my thoughts.  Driving to a new search, I would listen to the radio, sing badly, and pet Mu, as if we were going on another fun adventure, not going to a life and death search where we had a good chance of detecting a murder scene.  On one of his first searches after returning to work, Mu found a cat who had been missing for a week and needed veterinary care.  I was very happy that Mu had saved the cat’s life, of course.  I was very proud of Mu, and we went to a nearby parking lot to play fetch and celebrate his good work.  A search dog can only work if the job is fun.  He won’t do it because he should, or because he must.  Even when we find remains, or find evidence of a predator attack, I make sure to praise Mu and celebrate his good work.  Since that six month sabbatical, Mu has worked continuously and done a great job, with no more anxiety, and I have made a point of not letting the job get me down.  I can’t afford to be sad about this work because I just can’t do it if it’s going to make me miserable.  More importantly, I can’t be miserable because it affects Mu’s mood.  I can’t have Mu unhappy.

During the course of my work, I have seen so many terrible things.  I have picked up the remains of dogs and cats from the freeway.  We were looking for Bella, a sweet pit bull who had run off after a violent accident on the freeway.  When I located her, I knew exactly what I needed to do to keep her safe, to keep her from running onto the freeway.  Although I knew what to do, I couldn’t quickly and accurately convey that to each Good Samaritan that came upon the scene trying to help Bella.  They did not listen to my urgent advice, they did not use Calming Signals, and they spooked her onto the freeway.  I drove around to try to protect her, but before I could get to her, she was hit by a truck.  I had to go out onto I-90, with traffic going 70 miles an hour, to pick up Bellas body from the center lane, and I had to do it quickly before more cars ran over her. I held her warm, lifeless body in my arms, knowing I had failed her.  I love dogs.  I like dogs more than I like people in most cases.  Bella was innocent.  Her death was avoidable. I was right there, almost able to save her, and I failed.  Most of the time, when people call me for help, I am able to give them the advice they need, and their cat or dog is found safe.  Mu and Tino and I have located hundreds of cats and dogs and saved their lives.  There are also many that we could not save.  These losses hurt me not only because of how much I love my own dogs, but also because I know I could save so many more cats and dogs if I could get people to listen to my advice.  Most often, the thing that prevents people from hearing my advice is that they are overwhelmed with emotion.  I’m not asking people to be cold or uncaring about their lost pets.  Probably more than anyone else you will encounter, I understand how much you love your lost pet and how desperate you are to find them.  I don’t want to shut down your emotions, but we need to set them to the side for now so that we can focus on the actions you can take to save your family member, your son or daughter.  Also, I hope you can keep in mind that, although I don’t want to minimize your fear and anxiety, it’s not easy for me to receive a dozen phone calls a day where people are crying, experiencing the worst day of their life.  I need to remain as positive as I can in order to do my job.

As I’ve said, my dogs are the center of my world.  I love them like crazy.  I love Viktor even if he is deeply ambivalent about me.  Mu and Tino, my working dogs, I am especially bonded to.  Every night, I go to sleep wedged between 85 pound Mu and 115 pound Tino.  I can’t be happy if they aren’t happy.  All five of my dogs would most likely be dead if not for my actions.  Mu was living on a chain tied to a tree when he was six months old.  I bought him for $100 to get him away from a life that would have been miserable, and probably short.  Fozzie was seen running on the freeway when someone called me to help him.  Mu and I headed out with a humane trap, and my experience and expertise allowed me to catch him fairly quickly.  If I had not, if people had approached him the way people usually do, he probably would have been chased back onto the freeway and killed.  Sky was living in a cemetery when I found out about her.  She had nearly starved to death during her several months at the cemetery before locals started feeding her regularly.  No one could get close to her.  It’s unlikely she could have lived in the cemetery for years without getting hit by a car on the nearby freeways, or encountering some other trouble.  I was able to help Sky with Calming Signals, over a period of ten days, when no one else could.  Seven years later, she is snoring on the bed near me as I write this.  We caught Viktor twice, with considerable effort and ingenuity, and saved his life twice, so that he can happily ignore me.  Valentino’s mom was wandering in the wilderness.  The day after I trapped her in a humane trap, Tino was born.  If he had been born in the wilderness, or if I had never trapped his mother, it is unlikely either of them would have survived.  These dogs that I love more than anything, these dogs that have gone on to save the lives of other dogs and cats, these dogs would not exist if I hadn’t saved them.  They were not saved by my love for them, or at least not by love alone.  I was able to help them because I followed known methods that have proven to work, because I kept my head and took the right actions in a logical order.  I saved these dogs I love because I used my emotions, my deep love of cats and dogs, but I kept that emotion under the surface as I used reason and logic and practical, proven techniques.

If you call us for help with your lost cat or dog, I hope you can tell that I am sympathetic to what you are going through.  Even though I understand your grief and anxiety, and I fully support your right to feel how you feel, I will turn our conversation to the actions we need to be taking.  I will present you with a logical plan and reasonable, proven methods tailored to your situation.  Please know that I never want to minimize your feelings, even if it seems like that’s what I am doing.  I want you to harness those emotions to motivate you to take the most logical and reasonable course of action.  I want you to be reunited with your family if at all possible.  Once you are reunited, I will happily share those emotions with you and your pet.