Facebook page reunites lost dogs with owners; one dog recovered six months later

Losing a pet can be terrifying for both the pet owner and the critter itself.

A lost dog or cat can run into any number of dangers when wandering the streets.

And owners, along with worry, can feel limited in the number of things they can do to help find their furry friends.

Local shelters and police stations often help recover lost animals, but another local resource is gaining momentum.

The Facebook page SEMO Lost Pet allows distraught pet owners to let others in the region know their pet is missing.

A picture of the pet is posted online and shared by those following the page. Information about the whereabouts of Fido or Petunia is crowdsourced as the pets are spotted.

"It all started because of a dog named Sam," animal advocate Rochelle Steffen said. "A dear friend lost him."

This is a screen capture from the Facebook page SEMO Lost Pet with a photo of Riley when the dog was missing.SEMO Lost Pet

Steffen watched as her friend appealed to her Facebook friends for help.

Steffen realized because of privacy settings, and without an arsenal of online friends, the post wasn't getting maximum exposure.

So Steffen started SEMO Lost Pet as a way to alert a large number of people about a missing pet without being limited by privacy settings. More than 10,000 people follow the page, which has posted thousands of photos since its inception six years ago.

Initially, the page was run solely by Steffen.

"I put in quite a few hours on it," she said with a laugh.

But eventually the demand was too great, and the work she does on and offline with her other organization, Mac's Mission -- Mac the Pitbull's Facebook page has over 500,000 followers -- "kind of taps my entire life, honestly," she said.

So Steffen enlisted the help of her friends, who all participate in the page's administration. Right now, there are three: Steffen, Elizabeth Hann and Barb Frolker.

"Elizabeth took it over and ran it by herself for at least a year," Steffen said, and "Barb is amazing. She works her butt off on the page. She's one of the ones who does everything right now."

Frolker of Mississippi Mutts said while the number of posts can vary each day, their efforts on the page are steady.

She spends several hours a day on the page.

"I try to check it all the time, unless I get busy at the store," she said.

Hann, whose day job is working as a Medicaid billing clerk for Aging Matters, had a similar experience when the page was her main focus, though now her focus is on Mac the Pitbull's page. But she still spends at least an hour a day with SEMO Lost Pet.

It's a labor of love, working as an administrator of the page.

The pictures are posted. The comments are moderated, removing inappropriate language, judgmental comments or offers of rehoming.

"We keep it drama-free," Steffen said.

The women work hard to get the images posted quickly. There's no schedule; the three women just work on the page as time allows.

"We try to get things posted at least within an hour," Hann said.

"Urgency's a big deal," Steffen said. "Out on the street is no joke for a lost dog."

While the effort is made to get information out expeditiously, sometimes the quest to find a lost dog is a long one.

A recent success story from the SEMO Lost Pet page took six months to find its happy ending.

In mid-January, Nadene Lemons of Glenallen, Missouri, had two of her dogs run off.

Only one returned home in a timely manner. The other, Riley, a 4-year-old black Lab/chow mix Lemons had since he was a puppy, went missing.

Lemons posted his picture to SEMO Lost Pet while carrying out her own search of the area and local shelters.

The post worked. Lemons was contacted as people spotted a black dog with a blue collar in their area, and she would drive out to look.

"I drove as far as Perryville" to follow leads, she said.

In February, she received a call from Katie Heuring, who had seen the post and identified the dog as one she'd seen wandering around a lake near her home.

"We looked all over the property for him but never did see him," Lemons said.

Two months later, Riley made another appearance on the property, this time on a trail camera.

"It was right around turkey season," Lemons said.

Riley continued to leave evidence of his whereabouts. Paw prints. The occasional bark.

But it wasn't until June, after discovering Riley hiding out in a shed on Heuring's property, Lemons took a kennel, a trail cam and food out to the kennel and waited.

Eventually, Riley was caught and returned home, covered in ticks but happy to be returned to his family.

"It wouldn't have happened without SEMO Lost Pet," she said.

It took six months to bring her dog home, Lemons said, but the crowdsourcing efforts of SEMO Lost Pet and the assistance of the administrators helped keep her hope alive.

"There was so many times I would begin to think I should give up, and every time I had that thought, someone would send me a message about a dog," Lemons said.

The administrators, she said, had offered to acquire a large live trap to help capture the wily pup, though that ultimately was not necessary.

They also continued to post Riley's picture on their page, months after he went missing.

"A lot of that they did on their own," Lemons said. "I didn't ask them to repost; they were kind enough to do it on their own."

It's the success stories that make their efforts worth it, the administrators said. Even those without happy endings.

It's not uncommon for people to post when they spot a dog on the side of the road, having reached an untimely end.

"That's the sad part of it," Frolker said.

But people have thanked the page and the posters for those posts.

"It gives them closure," Frolker said.

The administrators encourage people to contact their local shelters and police department when a pet goes missing, in conjunction with a SEMO Lost Pet posting.

"When somebody finds a dog, they bring it to the shelter," Steffen said. "But it's crazy how many people don't think to look at the shelter."

The administrators perform this service without compensation except, Hann said, the good feelings that come with helping to reunite a pet with its owner.

And that's the way they want it.

"It's truly not about us," Steffen said. "It's 100 percent about reuniting dogs with their owners or getting them to a safe place."

bbrown@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3630