Seattle Pet Hunters
HUNTER: (noun) 1a: One who pursues with intent to find or capture b: a dog used or trained for hunting
Missing Pet Partnership is proud to announce the formation of Seattle Pet Hunters, a volunteer pilot program designed to reunite lost companion animals with their families in King County, Washington. The term "pet hunter" is used intentionally. Most families who've lost a companion animal are simply NOT using the proper search strategies, techniques, or resources required to find a missing pet. Most people post 8 ˝ X 11 flyers (which actually cannot be read by drivers passing by) and they passively wait for someone to call them if they have seen their lost pet. These people typically feel hopeless and helpless, and they quickly give up, never finding their missing dog or cat. Those companion animals end up somewhere, most often in local (or distant) shelters or rescue groups where they contribute to high euthanasia rates. Missing Pet Partnership has a philosophy for finding lost pets that makes perfect sense. It is the same philosophy involved in looking for missing people: If you want to find a lost person, you need to physically SEARCH (hunt) for them!
Seattle Pet Hunters volunteers conduct aggressive, physical searches for lost pets using trained search dogs, high-tech equipment, and CSI-like investigative techniques to solve lost pet investigations. You can read about some of our Seattle-area cases on our investigations page. The Federal Way Mirror came out recently on one of our investigations and published the following story. Our founder, Kat Albrecht, recently appeared on KOMO 4's North West Afternoon show to talk about our lost pet rescue work. If you live near Seattle and you'd like to volunteer for MPP (fundraising, pet detective work, fostering search dogs, administrative, etc.) please visit our new volunteer page and sign up!
Seattle Pet Hunters Calendar of Events
We will add to this calendar as events and trainings are confirmed, so please check back. You can always confirm an event by calling our office at (253) 529-3999.
Saturday August 30, 2008 - NO DOG TRAINING (Labor Day Weekend)
Tuesday September 2, 2008 - 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. - VOLUNTEER MEETING - Kent Senior Activity Center, Room #9, 600 E. Smith Street, Kent, WA (southeast corner of Smith & Kennebeck, across from Wendy's).
Saturday September 6, 2008 - 8:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. - Magnuson Park, Seattle, WA - PAWS (Progressive Animal Welfare Society) Walk Fundraiser - Come meet MPP pet detective volunteers and sign up to be a volunteer pet detective! Recruitment and development of our northwest county team begins! We need to find once a month (Tuesday evening) meeting space in Bellevue that will accommodate 40 volunteers. Please notify us if you have any leads!
Saturday September 13, 2008 - 12:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. - Steel Lake Park, Federal Way, WA - K9 Karnival event - Come meet MPP pet detective volunteers and their search dogs and sign up to be a pet detetive!
Saturday September 20, 2008 - 9:00 a.m. – approx noon – MAR K9 Training - SouthCenter - meet at the Vitamin Shoppe parking lot (behind the store) 17401 SouthCenter Parkway, Tukwila, WA. Bring water (for yourself and your dog), plastic bags to pick up doggy poop, a 30-foot-long lead, and a pair of clean socks (yes, socks!). For directions, see below.
Tuesday September 23, 2008 - 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. - VOLUNTEER MEETING - Kent Senior Activity Center, Room #9, 600 E. Smith Street, Kent, WA (southeast corner of Smith & Kennebeck, across from Wendy's).
Wednesday September 24, 2008 - 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. - Location - Sammamish Farmer's Market, Sammamish Commons Park (801 228th Ave SE, Sammamish, WA) - Come meet MPP pet detective volunteers and sign up to be a volunteer pet detective! Recruitment and development of our northwest county team begins! We need to find once a month (Tuesday evening) meeting space in Bellevue that will accommodate 40 volunteers. Please notify us if you have any leads!
Saturday October 4, 2008 - 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. - Federal Way Farmer's Market - Federal Way Commons parking lot (corner of 320th and Pacific Coast Hwy in Federal Way). Come meet MPP pet detective volunteers and sign up to be a volunteer pet detective!
Saturday October 18, 2008 - 9:00 a.m. – approx noon – MAR K9 Training - SouthCenter - meet at the Vitamin Shoppe parking lot (behind the store) 17401 SouthCenter Parkway, Tukwila, WA. Bring water (for yourself and your dog), plastic bags to pick up doggy poop, a 30-foot-long lead, and a pair of clean socks (yes, socks!). For directions, see below.
* For the SouthCenter MAR K9 dog trainings meet in the parking lot at the back of the Vitamin Shoppe, 17401 SouthCenter Parkway in Tukwila. This is a shopping center but offers several areas for training plus socialization and exposure to distractions. Look for the yellow "PET DETECTIVE TRAINING" signs at the entrance of the shopping center. The Vitamin Shoppe is located just north of the PetSmart and the Levitz Furniture stores and on the same side of the street. Further inquiries may be directed to MPP's training office in Federal Way at (253) 529-3999. Observers are invited to come out and observe and network. Even if you don't plan to train a dog to find lost pets, there are many other ways to volunteer for Missing Pet Partnership, including helping to work the search dogs that we have already trained.
In April 2008, Seattle-based volunteer Carol Hawley was gracious enough to donate her photography skills to MPP. Carol attended our first Seattle Pet Hunters MAR dog evaluations and photographed the evaluation of twelve dogs for our MAR program. She then developed these into an inspirational slide show, which we hope you’ll enjoy! Carol’s photography is just amazing. You can visit her web site at www.agalleryvisit.com.
*Our pages are copyright-protected. To share our lost pet information with others, please link or refer people to our website. To request permission to reprint material from our site, please contact us.