Missing Pet Partnership has excellent free advice online.
“Since pet detectives might not be available in your area, we offer these unique lost pet behavior recovery tips.
What makes our lost pet recovery tips unique?
Two facts: they are SPECIES SPECIFIC and they are BEHAVIOR SPECIFIC…”
http://www.missingpetpartnership.org/
"Missing Pet Partnership is a national, nonprofit organization dedicated to reuniting lost companion animals with their owners/guardians. Our website offers behavior-based lost pet recovery tips and referrals to lost pet services. We operate the first-ever volunteer lost pet search-and-rescue team (in Seattle, WA) that offers cutting edge lost pet recovery techniques like pet detectives with search dogs, lost dog protests, window tagging to market lost dogs in a community, and motion activated wildlife cameras with feeding stations to detect and capture displaced cats."
More advice on founder
Kat Albrecht's blog,
http://katalbrecht.com/blog/
“House As Trap” Recovery Tip,
works well with shy dogs and house cats,
http://katalbrecht.com/blog/?p=774
Two more successful reunification stories:
“Tale of Two Cats: Burley & Keko”,
http://katalbrecht.com/blog/?p=848
Ontario pet detective certified by MPP available for detailed phone consultation:
"Ronda, a certified MAR Technician, provides lost pet consultations services in Ontario. Ronda is available for phone and email consultations, including lost pet poster design and placement, recommended search activities and other information."
For contact info, see MPP site (
http://www.missingpetpartnership.org/), then "
Find a Pet Detective", "National Directory".
"Kat Albrecht is a former police officer-turned-pet-detective who is pioneering the science of finding lost pets. She has trained search dogs to locate missing people, criminals, physical evidence, and lost pets.
Disillusioned by a police career where her dog-tracking techniques and brilliant search dogs rarely got a chance to shine, Kat started training her retired Weimaraner, Rachel, to search for lost animals with unbelievable results. To the amazement of her colleagues, Kat decided to make her unconventional use of search dogs a full time career, becoming the only law-enforcement-based pet detective in the United States. Using investigative techniques such as search probability theory, behavioral profiling, searches with cat-detection dogs, scent-trailing dogs, and high-tech equipment, Kat Albrecht has already trained over 125 pet detectives in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Japan and Ireland who have helped thousands of pet owners locate their lost pets."
Hope all lost pets are reunited with their families!