Make sure your greyhound has a properly fitting collar.  

Hold the leash properly; wrap it around your wrist.  

Keep your greyhound on a leash at all times.  

If you do not like the sound of tags, tape them together or get a tag silencer but keep them ON. 

ALWAYS have identification tags on your dogs with your phone number.  

Leash your grey BEFORE opening the doors.  

Check your gates and be sure they are closed PRIOR to letting your dog out.  

NEVER use a flexi-lead.  If you drop the handle and your dog takes off, they will be frightened by the plastic handle chasing behind. Mechanisms in the flexi-leads can snap.  

Additional padlocks are a must!!!  

The world's highest dog jump record is held by a greyhound. Fences should be at least 4 feet high. Do not assume that your greyhound can't jump. 

Consider having gates that can only be opened from the inside so that people/neighbors cannot simply walk in.  

Post signs on your fence letting strangers know that you have a dog.  

If you are running your dog in a fenced in field, check the perimeter for ways to escape and the gates to be sure they are securely closed.  

If you are traveling with your dog, consider temporary identification including where you are staying. 

Anticipate the season: Fireworks on the Fourth and thunderstorms can be terrifying to dogs.   

If you have a door with a screen top only, remove the screen window to the storm door to give out Halloween candy so that the door can remain closed. 

Consider a baby gate as an additional barrier if you are entertaining.  

NEVER leave your dog outside alone.  Dogs can do some pretty amazing things if they become panicked including scaling a fence.

ADDING an alternative means of identification such as micro chipping to your dog's tags. This may not be effective in preventing a lost dog, however, it may be useful as a means of identification if your dog is turned into a vet, police or shelter.  

Preparing a Search/Recovery: 

- contact your adoption group
- contact local police and inform them that you have lost your greyhound and that you will be putting up flyers to search for him/her. Also indicate that as soon as the dog is found, they will be taken down
- create a poster of your missing greyhound. Make sure that the contact number is a number that you can be reached at immediately
- have at least 500 posters printed on bright paper to be posted
- contact the local animal shelters, vets and animal hospitals. Have the information of the nearest emergency vet available
- charge your cell phone and have your emergency contact number on your person
- print a map of your town and make copies for your volunteers to know where to look or to post flyer
- contact local dog officer/animal control, local humane society
- ask the post office if they will post the information and communicate to the mail carriers
- if you live near a highway, contact local state highway department
- ask local businesses including gas stations to post flyers
- ask local schools/churches to make an announcement
- put a news story in the paper, use any media avenues possible i.e. local cable, radio
- post on the Greytalk AMBER ALERThttp://forum.greytalk.com/index.php?showforum=24 or the Greyhound AMBER ALERT Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/GreyhoundAmberAlert/

What to Bring:    

- bring a leash/collar for when he/she is found
- keep smelly treats in your pockets
- bring a spotlight, not just a flashlight
- bring a map to indicate what areas have been covered
- bring flyers to hand out to people in the area who have not heard
- when posting flyers, bring a staple gun and extra staples
- bring poop bags
- take care of your own dogs needs if you bring them
- keep your cell phone charged and with you at all times - be prepared for the weather, bring a change of socks and shoes   

Lastly, get some rest. Searching and posting is very tiring. Make sure that you are resting so you can be alert when searching.  

Tools for your lost dog recovery kit
Search teams need some basic supplies when going out on lost dog searches.   

Short List of Essentials:
_ Large flashlight with batteries and a car charger
_ Cell phone or walkie-talkies, fully charged
_ Staple guns with extra staples on your person
_ Extra leash, collar and harness   

For night time searches:
_ Proper weather gear for you and your hound 

 _ Reflective wear for humans and dogs.  If you cannot locate reflectors or lights for a collar, carry glow sticks  

Other things we carry in our kits:
_ Map of the town and highlighter
_ Can of wet dog food and smelly treats
_ Pens and paper
_ Small pocket mirror for spooky hounds with whom you can ’ t make eye contact
_ Clear tape (for business windows)
_ Change of socks and shoes! 

 

Finding Your Lost Greyhound
From Celebrating Greyhounds, Spring 2003 issue
Mike McCann 

Okay, you've lost him. He slipped his collar, or ran out of the open gate. He was spooked by lightning and jumped the back fence. You dropped the leash, or you let him run off lead, he saw a squirrel and suddenly he was gone. It all doesn't really matter now. What matters is the steps you have to take to get him back. He's out there and he's depending on you to find him. He's lost and can't find his way home. It's been a couple of hours now. You've scoured the neighborhood, and you are hoping to see him in every yard and around every corner. But, you are beginning to realize that you can't find him. Here's what you have to do:

Change your mindset: This is most important and most difficult step. You have to stop checking every street and back yard yourself, and start recruiting an army to do it for you. Most greyhounds are found within a mile or two of where they were last seen, but a two mile radius is nearly 13 square miles, an impossible area to search adequately alone. You have to stop looking for your dog, and start looking for people. Everything that follows depends on it. With every hour that goes by, your chances of finding your dog, on your own, diminish. You now have to find someone who has seen your dog. You need a sighting and in order to get a sighting , you need help! Ask everyone you know, including your friends, co workers, adoption group and son's cub scout pack to help you. Don't wait until tomorrow, do it now.

Get the word out: Whether you have help or not, you've got to get the word out about your lost dog. You and your volunteers are going to search yes, but while you're searching, you're going to post flyers on every available telephone pole, in every super market, drug store, school, church, police stations, vets' office or any other public place surrounding the area. Ninety percent of lost dogs who are found, are found because someone saw a flyer. The flyers don't have to be fancy, but get them printed on the loudest, gaudiest paper available. "LOST GREYHOUND" In big letters. "If sighted please call (555)555~5555 " a silhouette of a running greyhound works great as an attention grabber. 500 of them is a good start, but you may need more. The area should be so saturated with flyers that you can't turn around without seeing one. Don't expand your search area until you've totally covered the area where he was last seen.

• Knock on doors and talk to everyone you see; the mail person, the UPS driver, the local landscaper. Any of these people may see your dog, and if they do, now they won't just think it's some dog on his way home, they'll know he's lost. Give everyone you talk to a flyer.
• Schools are a great resource for search help. Ask the principal to make announcements about the lost dog and leave flyers to pass out and post on bulletin boards.. Kids see everything in the neighborhood but will ignore dogs running around unless asked to look. If you hand one kid a flyer, five more will have seen it by the end of the day. Don't ignore the little kids either. They tell their folks everything.
• Call every veterinarian's office, animal control officer and police department within two or three miles from where he was last seen. Follow up with a flyer or several. Faxing them will save you some time but it is important that they see you, rather than just a piece of paper. If you show people how concerned you are, they'll want to help you. Don't just call them once, call them every few days and in the case of the police, during every shift, to make sure everyone knows about your dog.
• Run newspaper ads in the local papers, and while you're at it, talk to a reporter and see if she'll run a local interest story on the lost greyhound. Local cable access stations often will run your lost dog ad for free and local radio stations and TV stations will often run the story on a slow news night
• Check your local animal shelters every few days, in person. It is amazing how many folks who work in these places don't know dog breeds. Your greyhound could be hanging out at a local shelter, up for adoption, because they think he's a Whippet or a Doberman mix.
• Get in touch with your local Department of Public Works, or Highway Department. Sadly, they often will pick up an animal's body from the road, and if there is no identification, the owner will never know. Collars often fall off when a dog is loose or struck by a car.   

Tools you'll need: Print some maps of your area to give to the volunteers. Make notations of areas that have been well posted. Set up grids and utilize them to cover all the locations in your search area. Send teams to each grid area. Get some heavy duty staple guns and use those for putting up your posters on telephone poles. If available, try to keep in touch with your teams with cell phones, or walkie-talkie so that when you get a sighting, you can have them go immediately to the sight.

Make sure that there is always someone available at the phone number you posted. You don't want people to call with a sighting, then hang up because they got a message service.

Don't assume anything: Don't assume your dog has been picked up, it's the trap that everyone seems to fall into: "No sighting, someone must have picked up my dog"! Greyhounds are notorious for disappearing in the woodwork. A person can walk right by a brindle Greyhound laying in a pile of leaves and never even see him. Some go for months or even years without being found, because people assume they have been picked up or are dead.

Don't assume that the call you got about a dog five miles away is yours. Follow it up, yes, but when you start getting calls about dogs, ask questions: What color was the dog you saw? How big? Which way was it heading? Have you ever seen him before? You don't want to be running out of your search area just to find that someone called you about a beagle they saw running through the yard. These false leads are actually a positive sign, they mean your efforts are working; people are looking out for your dog. It's just that they don't know the difference between a Greyhound and a Jack Russell terrorist.

Don't lose hope: A few days or a week of searching can be discouraging. A lack of sightings, or no word at all can be tough on a positive attitude. Just remember, your hound is still out there, and someone has seen him. All you have to do, is to find that person. It's only natural to start thinking the worst. But, as non-street savvy as greyhounds are, they are survivors. Keep looking. Don't give up. Your Grey is counting on you. 
 
Edited to Add:
A NOTE ABOUT REWARDS: Lost Greyhounds, especially shy ones, are extremely difficult to catch. Your goal should be to encourage people who see the dog call you with the sighting. Once the sightings have established where the dog is hanging out, then set up feeding stations for her. Then, you can set up a humane trap for the capture.

In our experience, rewards often work against getting sightings. What happens is that you will increase the numbers of people looking for the dog yes, but the new people tend to be bounty hunters; teenagers, or "cowboys", who just think of the money, not the safety of the animal. Often, when they see the dog, the first thing they do is chase, and sometimes they chase the dog right out the safety of the territory the dog has felt comfortable in. These people rarely call in sightings, because they want to cash in.

We suggest that the wording of that flyer should be something like: "LOST GREYHOUND, IF SIGHTED, PLEASE CALL, (555)555-5555, PLEASE, DO NOT CHASE HER". We never even mention a reward. We feel that if someone does catch the dog, and asks for a reward, we can still pay it, but we don't ask for trouble by offering money in advance.

Would you rather have a hundred sympathetic animal lovers helping you look for your dog, or a couple of hundred clueless bounty hunters trying to cash in on her? We'll go with the animal lovers, every time.

Lost Dog Checklist

Don't let your out-of-control emotions prevent you from forgetting something important!
Print out this checklist and mark of each suggestion as you complete it.

 Contact Greyhound Friends of NJ at 732 356-4370
 Put Out Missing Pet Flyers
 Call Animal Control
 Call neighboring Police Departments
 Contact local veterinary hospitals
 Canvass the neighborhood with friends, flashlights and treats. Flashlights will reflect off a dog's eyes in the dark, so shine those lights under porches, decks, bushes and inside barrels.
 Have plenty of batteries
 Searching on foot? Bring one of your dog's canine friends with you.
 Leave food and water out in your yard in case she comes home on her own.
 Call local radio stations
 Take care of YOU too.
 Have somebody, not you, babysit your home phone to take calls while you are out looking.
 Alert Mailmen, meter readers, garbage truck drivers, etc. as they are driving around the neighborhood.
 Visit shelters daily in person.
 Offer a reward in large letters on the poster.
 Bring a blanket to keep in the car. You won't know what kind of shape your dog will be in when she is located, and a blanket can serve as an emergency stretcher if needed.
 Have a spare collar and leash with you.
 Use a high-pitched whistle or squawker. It will carry farther than a voice, and a curious dog may come to investigate the sound.
 Go to your local businesses and shops, especially restaurants. The smell of food may draw out a hungry runaway.  
 Stay in contact with GFNJ