Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control Lost and Found

Dianne Sauve may be top dog at the county's Animal Care and Control department but when her dog slipped its collar and bolted from the department's parking lot, she was beside herself in panic. When Sauve and several volunteers failed to track Delilah come 2 the next morning, she was desperate.

Still, when a trusted volunteer suggested she make a phone call, Sauve wondered - fleetingly - if she was barking mad.

Nevertheless, there Sauve was last Friday on the phone with Jamie Katz, pet detective.

The 38-year-old licensed private investigator has tracked rogue dogs and cats, but also a range of beasts from a Madagascar tortoise to an errant ferret. She's found pets that have crossed state lines, pets that have landed in the hands of humans who would pass them off as their own, and some pets that have been sold. She's even rescued a cat held hostage by a wilier, feral feline bent on securing the crawl space of a neighbor's house.

Three years ago, Katz reunited the daughter of basketball Hall-of-Famer Michael Jordan with the young woman's lost Pomeranian-Yorkie mix.

Katz boasts a 67 percent find rate in a career of more than 600 cases, better than the 10 percent success rate she says pet owners have on their own.

Though she's risen to semi-celebrity status in pet-loving circles thanks to high-profile media coverage of some of her capers, the phone call from Sauve was kind of next level.

"I can't say I wasn't nervous," Katz concedes. "This is the director of the county's animal care and control. It's her dog."

Delilah was not going to be easy to find, much less catch.

As a pup, the cattle dog mix with Yoda-like black ears and speckled gray trunk eluded care and control officers for four months while on the lam in Palm Beach Gardens. Residents regularly reported the dog, worried about its health or the health of animals it might mingle with. In the end, a professional tracker had to shoot her with a tranquilizer dart and chase her for a quarter of a mile before the dog was in his custody.

In custody, that's where Sauve met Delilah and volunteered to be the skittish dog's foster mom. Hours after introductions, the dog, abandoned by its owners, was glued to the woman's side - at least until that day this month when Delilah was due for a primp from a mobile groomer.

Katz never makes promises. "Just because you hire me, does not mean we're going to find your animal. The owner needs to be involved. It's not easy. I can't be everywhere."

And she isn't cheap. Katz's help can run from almost $500 to closer to $1000.

Right now, you may be thinking, "Animal Care and Control? Don't they know how to find a lost dog?"

Though plenty of people call ACC's offices on Belvedere Road daily, tracking lost pets isn't in the job description, Sauve said. The department is in the business of animal law enforcement as well as housing and adopting out stray, unwanted, injured and sick pets. They can give a distressed owner with a lost pet some advice, but little else.

As director, Sauve said she's also not in a position to recommend particular private services, pet detective or otherwise.

But within a day of hiring Katz, Sauve had Delilah back in her arms.

"I don't think I'd have gotten her back this quick without Jamie's help," Sauve said this week. "When people lose their pets, they aren't thinking logically, and it helps to have someone standing right there saying, 'We have to do this. We have to do that.' "

The we-have-to's were numerous and eye-opening even to Sauve.

Among them, fetch a photo of Delilah standing on all fours.

Also, flimsy flyers aren't going to cut it.

You'll need 11-by-17, Katz's signature hard laminated, bright yellow and red marquees with that standing pose. They'll need to be mounted at eye level. Typically, it will take at least 60 posters that you can get with Katz's discount at her preferred office supply store for $160.

Sauve ordered 100 posters on the first day and 100 more were about to go up the next when the first ones did their magic.

But before we get to any happy endings, Katz employed another tactic in the pursuit of Delilah, scent seeking dogs of her own.

Fletcher, a terrier mix, and Gable, a spaniel, are pros who are deployed when situations demand. And for Delilah, a known roamer, tracking was in order.

Fletcher and Gable's investigative powers aren't something to turn your nose up at. They've alerted Katz to dog-nappings.

"We had a case a couple months ago in Kendall where we literally lost scent in the driveway. I knew then and there it was a vehicle pickup." A bit of sleuthing, this is where the PI license comes into play, and Katz discovered a family member was in on the snatch.

Katz was duly nervous, however, about tracking a dog's scent at ACC headquarters, a place up to the rafters in aroma.

She needn't have worried.

Sauve said people who witnessed Delilah's escape sprint on that Thursday said Fletcher and Gable exactly replicated her dash on Friday.

"The dogs took us over the Turnpike and I thought, this can't be right," Sauve recalled.

Katz didn't doubt.

Katz has spent a lifetime rescuing strays, so many that she and her dad spent her childhood in Baltimore moving from apartment to apartment, evicted each time her menagerie grew beyond their landlords' tolerance.

She thought she'd become a vet, but passing college biology proved too big of a hurdle. And pet detecting? "I didn't know that was a thing." She turned her attention to criminal justice and private investigation.

Katz learned she could marry her love of pets and her investigative skills when her neighbor's cat vanished in 2014. Someone had posted an ad on Craigslist offering to track lost pets. Katz was willing to pay to help her neighbor find the 15-year-old cat. But the trackers never showed.

"On the third day, we found Honey underneath a neighbor's house being held hostage by a feral cat, Bubelah. The cat owner took a broom, crawled under the house and shoo'd Bubelah." The neighbor got her cat, Katz got a roadmap to the future.

"If this is a real thing, I'm going to do this for the rest of my life," Katz recalled thinking.

She sought training out of state and, in 2015, Katz, with Fletcher and Gable in tow, opened her pet detective agency in Fort Lauderdale.

Her Facebook page is filled with her latest cases. Chessie, a black, tan and white Saluki. Found Day 5!!! Mystio, a black, 12-pound cat. Found Day 7!!! Milo, a black and tan Yorkie. Found Day 14!!!

And some not so lucky. Cody, an aging white Chihuahua, whose sight and hearing are failing, has been missing from his Wellington home since Halloween. A black Labrador named Coal escaped his dog sitter's care in Land O' Lakes on Sept. 10 and has not been found.

Delilah bolted Thursday, Nov. 21, slipping a standard collar (yeah, don't use those) from the mobile groomer. Not seeing Sauve's face, the dog kept on running. Sauve, her friends and off duty staff walked the area abutting industrial work sites into the wee hours. Her initial Facebook post:"Last seen running towards Turnpike and Belvedere Road. She is afraid of strangers. If spotted please call… I am beyond devastated. Please share this post and help Delilah get home."

By Friday morning, Sauve was putting her faith in Katz.

"The dogs worked until after dark, and I was heartbroken," Sauve said. "The dogs had found a trail, and it was a big open area under construction. Bulldozers. We saw her print, but it was overlaid by those of a larger dog or dogs. The only thing I knew is Delilah has speed on her side and… she doesn't fight."

Katz directed the posters go up so that no one coming in or out of the zone could miss them. She also made it clear no one except Sauve was to approach the dog, lest she run again.

The first call was a scam, something Katz says happens all the time.

Someone spotted the poster, called the number and wanted a call back. But Katz quickly dismissed the number as a phony and kept Sauve from spending hours trying to sort a true lead from a false one.

The next caller was a man in a warehouse complex not far from the turnpike, who spotted Delilah sitting at the edge of a nature preserve. He recognized her from the poster, Sauve said. Unfortunately, when the man got in the car to find the poster, Delilah took off.

The officer who once darted Delilah a year back made the morning's second spotting, but the dog was too fast for him.

Katz advised Sauve to stay in that area, Delilah would double back, she said. Sauve says she should've heeded Katz's advice. But instead, Sauve felt she needed to head to ACC offices where search parties were due to gather.

Sure enough, Delilah circled back. And, while Sauve wasn't in position, ACC's off-duty live release coordinator Tammy Roberts was.

"My phone suddenly rang and it was Tammy, who had 'eyes on' Delilah lying on a canal bank. I got there as quickly as possible and quietly approached her. Once she recognized me, her ears went back in submission and she belly crawled to me," Sauve said.

Sauve figures an angel was sitting on Tammy's shoulder. But it was a pet detective that had Delilah's back.

Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control Lost and Found

Source: https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/2019/11/29/who-does-countys-top-pet-authority-call-when-her-dog-bolts-this-pet-detective/2186011007/

Share this post