Ken Price could spend 24 hours a day searching for lost dogs.
There are so many lost dogs, he says, it has practically become an epidemic.
Price, who heads up Dream Team Search Rescue and Recovery Inc., puts everything he has into helping owners locate their beloved pets. It’s his passion.
The non-profit organization is run entirely by volunteers, and doesn’t charge for services. And as anyone who has worked with him to find a lost a pet knows, his efforts are relentless.
Price says that, along with the large number of reunited pets that people hear about the Dream Team helping to locate, there are probably an equal number he helps to return home that go unmentioned.
“That happens twice a day, and ones the public doesn’t even see,” he added. Several are pets that go missing across North America. While his response team can’t help over long distances – they focus on the Hamilton, Burlington, GTA area – he offers tips and advice to people anywhere in Ontario and Canada.
He’s even helped reunite pets and families from the far north and the United States.
“If they want to trap their own dog, we’ll tell them what to put in it, and tips to bring the dog home.”
Price has been a canine handler for 30 years. When it comes to finding lost dogs though, he had to take everything he knew in his head and start from scratch.
“People are used to searching for a domesticated dog but, ultimately, when a dog is lost, they revert back to their natural wild state and instincts,” Price said.
“Maybe they set off to catch a squirrel and become disoriented,” he said. “Everything becomes out of the ordinary. Their owners, their home, are gone. In the subconscious, they revert back to the wild. They become afraid of people.”
Because of that, Dream Team uses a methodical approach and practical methods – even grid searches – and drones and other equipment as needed. Initially, social media postings can assist in getting the word out quickly and to a larger audience.
Price guides and assists on all matters related to the organization.
He said a lost dog wants out of the current situation, and they ask owners to set up a place for the dog to come home to with food, water, etc. They use a motion powder on the ground that reveals where the dog has visited. They’ll check times, and ensure the owner is there, or if needed, set a baited trap.
Price said he prefers not to use traps because it can permanently frighten the dog in closed or small spaces, but sometimes there’s no other option.
“It could give them post traumatic stress disorder of going in any crate, in any doorway. If we can end it a different way we do.
“Most of ours, I’d say 97 per cent, see the owner luring the dog back to them, rather than trapping, but as dog people and handlers on our team, we know the benefits of that as well.”
And, when a dog is reunited without the trap, the pet treats the owner like he or she is a saviour.
“As they’re coming together, the air bubbles are coming out of the dog’s consciousness,” he said. “From that day on, the owner is their saviour. It creates a better bond between owner and the founder.”
Sometimes a trap is the only choice. Price knows it’s a better alternative than chasing a scared dog, who could easily dart out into traffic and pose a safety risk when drivers swerve to avoid the dog.
Price’s own dog Charcoal – now retired – was a scent tracking dog. He used him for 12 years, since the inception of Dream Team. But as he is getting older, Price prefers to keep him as his companion dog now, although he has relented on a few occasions.
However, Price says, a scared dog may run away, thinking the tracking dog is a threat - like a coyote, or other wild animal. When Charcoal sends him an alert, Price will pull him back before getting too close. This give his team a vicinity to search.
Daisy is the first dog Price tracked. That gained plenty of media attention at the time. Daisy had fallen off a 50-foot cliff at the Royal Botanical Gardens, and by the time her owner made it to the bottom, she was gone.
Price, who was at the time recuperating at home following a scary ordeal in hospital, saw the owners were searching for the dog, and he knew he had to step in and help. “It was kind of a fluke,” he said of the Dream Team's beginnings.
“I’m trained in grid search. So I said, ‘I died, I came back, I’m still in bed, but I can run a grid search for you.' He contacted the owner, and she said she wanted him to take over the search for her dog.
“I said yes to her even though every fibre of my body was saying no, tell her no,” he said. “We put a five-person team together. Did the public ever step in. Became overwhelming, with thousands of people stepping up.”
He used the volunteers during the day, and a scent dog at night.
“The five of us would go out and we would search for clues. That final weekend, I called for as many volunteers as possible. I think 250 people lined up five feet apart, and we sent them through the bush. We kind of knew where she was.”
But it was a happenstance that ended the search.
A volunteer in a truck on Highway 403, coming from Highway 6, spotted Daisy's head and ears. He stopped, called out to her, and then called Price. He told him Daisy looked funny, just sitting there. He approached her slowly, but she’d run when he got close. Finally, he was able to get to her, and brought her to his truck.
When Price arrived, they realized Daisy was having a seizure. It turns out, she was likely seizing when she fell off the cliff, and that's the only reason she survived the fall, he said.
“After Daisy was caught - that was on CH news – another dog went missing,” he said. “Online the five-member team started getting called the dream team that comes out at night.
“‘Is that Dream Team going to find this one?’ people asked. So we did it. Now we do more than 300 per year. I consult every day, probably in more than 6,000 of them now.”
Since then, Price has tracked thousands of missing dogs with Charcoal who can, at the very least tell the team what direction to head.
Daisy, meanwhile, is depicted in the centre of the non-profit group’s logo.
Price recalls searching for a Yorkie named Pippa. She was only 4.5 pounds and went missing in the Upper Sherman/Rymal Road area of Hamilton. There had been a sighting of her in the neighborhood, but nothing they could confirm. They kept searching, but no luck. Finally, Charcoal kept telling them the dog was in a different neighbourhood, based on scent.
“You trust your dog, so we kept going,” said Price. "Two weeks later, we get a sighting of Pippa and she is right in front of us – right where Charcoal told us.” She was only 2.5 pounds by then, living near a pack of 12 coyotes, but had found a tiny place they couldn’t get to.
Dream Team charges nothing for its services but, Price says it is one of the best, if not the best, reputed services out there. He said people have called 9-1-1 over their lost dog, and even those communicators provide Price’s phone number. If a dog owner posted something on a lost and found website, Dream Team will be tagged at least 100 times.
The team now has a few drones and one $60,000 thermal drone that can be put up into the air to find an animal day or night.
“Every service we offer is free,” he said. “Not one person, including me as executive director, gets a pay cheque.”
To raise money, they have done Krispy Kreme sales, and they always get more than the 500 orders they’re allotted.
In addition, Dream Team does outreach programs for people who have trouble affording, dog, cat or even rabbit food.
“Send a message and we have an officer deliver food, leashes, beds, toys,: says Price. "If you’re down on your luck, we have a donation program.”
The last Sunday of every month the Knights Templars, City Care and Legacy Church in Hamilton take care of people with clothing, shoes and toiletries. They run a barbecue with fresh hot food too. Dream Team is there, taking care of anything for pets and animals.
“We set up a ‘store’ on the side lawn to Legacy Church, you come in, you shop and it’s absolutely free,” said Price, who in his paid former career provided security for the Prime Minister and ministers in Ottawa. “You get what you need, and get what your kids need, then you get what the pets need, and an amazing meal. There’s no charge for anything.”
He said some 200 to 400 people come out for that.
Dream Team was formed with the goal of keeping everyone up to date with information on the dogs they are searching for. By having the word spread about missing dogs, it helps more people looking for lost dogs. Rescues, breeders, dog groups, dog pages, and dog lovers in general all work as a big team to help find more dogs and help more owners.
Visit their Facebook page to learn about some of the dogs who’ve been reunited or learn how to volunteer. To donate, e-transfer [email protected]
