Lost & Hound

This lost pet tracking and recovery service has helped find more than 300 furry friends

Americans spend over $100 billion annually on their pets and pet-related products and services. With that kind of investment, along with profound emotional bonds, it’s no wonder pet owners lose their minds when Fluffy goes missing.

A door left open, a collar too loose, the unexpected boom of nearby fireworks—any of these things could lead to an animal’s flight, leaving owners worried, desperate, and often unsure where to look or how to find their beloved pet. They often turn to social media and frantically post paper fliers around the community.

Pets go missing about 10 million times each year, according to the American Humane Society. Of those, only a small percentage (15 percent of dogs and 2 percent of cats) are ever reunited with their owners, usually via tags and microchips.

That’s a lot of missing animals and distressed owners. Most lost pets wind up in shelters, awaiting recovery, adoption, or euthanasia.

But an East Jordan woman is using her talents in animal tracking and recovery to help owners find their beloved pets. And with pet ownership at all-time highs in the United States, business at Lost & Hound Lost Pet Tracking and Recovery Service is, well, off the chain.

From Paw Prints to Feral Cats

Wilma “Shep” Shepard is the driving force behind this endeavor. She and her canine tracker, Butz, an adopted Beagle with a sensitive nose for particular scents, lead a larger team of volunteers who spring into action when area residents need help locating their wandering furry loved ones.

To date, Shepard and her Lost & Hound team have reunited over 300 pets with grateful, relieved owners. While dogs and cats make up the majority of her cases, other recovered pets have included ferrets, turtles, exotic birds, guinea pigs, and a pet pig.

Shepard launched Lost & Hound in 2020, following a path from childhood that began with pets of her own and an after-school job helping care for horses on a ranch that doubled as an animal rescue facility.

“I was cleaning stables, feeding the animals, tending to the injured, and assisting wherever help was needed in exchange for horse riding lessons,” Shepard tells Northern Express. She says those early experiences cemented her love for animals and triggered an interest in tracking, a critical part of lost pet recovery.

While living in Colorado in the ’90s, Shepard studied animal paw prints in order to say safe hiking the mountains, deepening her interest in general paw print tracking. In fact, she got most of her ground tracking experience while living there.

But it was all just a hobby until she moved back to East Jordan, where a feral cat population was expanding rapidly. Believing her skills could help mitigate the growing problem, Shepard launched the Red Barn Project, aimed at live-trapping stray and feral cats.

“It seemed like a never-ending project at the time,” she says. “But I like to think we made an impact. During that time, I also started helping find lost cats and dogs in our neighborhood, which sparked the interest in learning the art of trapping.”

A Team Approach

Trapping pets might sound barbaric, but Shepard uses live traps in which the animals are merely contained, unharmed. She says it’s sometimes easier to use bait to lure them in, rather than literally chasing pets with her tracking dog. Shepard says lost pets often revert to a survival mode in which even familiar pet owners can seem foreign and dangerous, making recovery tricky.

To overcome that unpredictability, Shepard employs a variety of other methods, including the highly-effective Butz, to locate animals. Using a team approach, she encourages pet owners to post paper fliers and social media notices. In each case, Shepard puts team work and communication first, working with land owners, gaining permission to search, and helping focus local eyes on areas where fearful, misguided animals may go.

Working with neighboring property owners to gain authorized access, she and Butz, along with a small team of volunteers who serve as flankers and drivers, try to locate the missing animal’s path. Once that’s determined, Shepard and Butz can usually calculate the pet’s general location.

Though she learned a lot studying animal paw prints on her own, Shepard boosted her knowledge when she enrolled in professional lost pet recovery training with Missing Animal Response Network, a Cincinnati business. After an immersive, days-long course in upstate New York, she graduated as a missing animal response technician, with additional training in business operations and canine handling.

Saving the Day

Shepard’s advanced knowledge and training paid off for East Jordan resident Teresa Mihelich in 2022, when her skittish dog Schatzi got lost after bolting into a nearby woods during a booming thunderstorm.

Schatzi had belonged to other family members and was relatively new to the Mihelich home when she ran off. Mihelich’s “missing dog” social media posts caught Shepard’s attention, and she reached out to help.

“Shep and her canine, Butz, chased Schatzi out of the woods, past the cemetery, and into town,” a still-grateful Mihelich explains. “We started seeing Facebook posts because people in town spotted her and were posting about a lost dog.”

Not long after that, Shepard had the elderly Schatzi in her care, ready once more to reunite dog and owner.

“I was overjoyed, running down the street in my pajamas,” Mihelich says of the moment she got Schatzi back. “At first, she got spooked by my husband, then she stopped and looked and recognized me. It was like a Hallmark moment where she just jumped into my arms. She was wet and tired and worn out, but still alive!

“[Shepard] was absolutely wonderful to work with, a real professional,” Mihelich adds. “She communicated with us and kept us in the loop. She was a lifesaver, literally. I have the utmost respect for that woman and what she does.”

Dr. Amanda Zoerner, owner of East Jordan’s Pet Well Mobile Vet, has worked on 12 missing pet cases over the five years she’s known Shepard. “This is a labor of love for Wilma,” Zoerner said. “Her heart’s in this.

“It’s all about helping her community, whether it’s through finding lost pets, helping the elderly, or stopping by and checking in on people. She just has such a good heart,” Zoerner concludes.

Shepard affirms her civic-minded mission, saying that Lost & Hound Pet Recovery Service “is an investment that to this day is helping our community and beyond safely contain lost and stray pets.”

Though there are minor fees associated with some of Shepard’s services, donations made by satisfied pet owners comprise most of Lost & Hound’s revenue. To learn more, find Lost & Hound Lost Pet Tracking and Recovery Service on Facebook.

Tips for Pet Parents

* Tag or microchip your pets. Make sure tags have the owner's name, address, and contact info. Tagged and microchipped animals have a greater chance of being reunited with the owner.

* Following a lost dog that’s in survival mode can make the dog more frightened. A lost dog uses natural instincts to survive. When the flight response kicks in, a dog will bolt from humans and may become more fearful of humans if chased, called out to, whistled at, etc.

* If a pet runs away, post fliers with photos and contact info around the community and on social media. Try to get as many people as possible looking for your pet.

* Allow a lost dog to settle into a safe area, then set up a food and water station. If the animal is lured in, find a safe way to contain it.

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