Pettrailling in Mallorca

The Pérez family recently had a new family member - a cat called Leila. The family lives in a finca in the countryside in Arta. The owner, Maria, had already heard about Mascotafind from friends and immediately registered her new pet there. Luckily for her - the plan to keep the cat within the house during the acclimatisation period went wrong. She escaped through a door that had been left open by mistake and disappeared. Completely distraught, Maria ran outside and tried to lure the cat by calling its name. Unfortunately in vain. Leila was not yet used to the surroundings, her new name or her new family - so she remained missing. Cats rarely respond to their own name; in fact, calling them frequently more often tends to scare them away. Especially in new environments cats are very jumpy and shy. As Leila had still not turned up after five days, Maria reported the cat as missing to Mascotafind. Our team reacted immediately and first looked at the area around the finca on Google Earth. The area looked easily accessible and open, which led the Mascotafind team to decide to contact the colleagues from Sniffer Dog Mallorca and, with their help, to start searching for Leila. On the same day, the helpers set off with Sniffer Dog manager Sabine Feicht and two search dogs to the Pérez family's finca. The dogs are trained to concentrate on the scent of the animal they are looking for. So, in spite of there being numerous other cats on the property, the search dogs were able to pick up her scent thanks to a cushion on which Leila had been sleeping for the past few days. However, after two and a half hours of intensive searching, Leila could not be found. But Sabine was still hopeful. Through her many years of experience and her ability to understand her dogs without words, she understood that the search dogs were reacting more intensively in several places in the garden. So it was clear to her: Leila was still there in the garden. So now it was a matter of finding her and bringing her home again. With Sabine’s help Maria set up a trap to catch the cat. One day later the plan worked and Leila was in the trap! Maria was overjoyed to have her new family member back with her after a week of stress and anxiety. Sabine and the Mascotafind team were also overjoyed to have another pet back with its owner. Through our partnership with Sniffer Dogs Mallorca, it was possible to ensure that the cat was indeed still on the premises. Fortunately, cats generally tend to stay in the area first, rather than run away. So a search with search dogs makes sense! However, one should not wait too long before starting the search - especially in the case of missing dogs, action must be taken quickly. Also, not every area is always suitable for working with search dogs. In Maria's and Leila's case, thank God, they had the right conditions and a Happy End.