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The Lost Pet Chronicles: Adventures of a K-9 Cop Turned Pet Detective
 
 
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The Lost Pet Chronicles: Adventures of a K-9 Cop Turned Pet Detective [Hardcover]

Kathy Albrecht (Author)
4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)


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Book Description

April 24, 2004
For millions of people, a pet is more than just an animal that shares a living space. These millions will do anything they can to recover a four-legged member of the family when it goes missing: unfortunately, most people just don't know where to look. Kat Albrecht is the person they call. Disillusioned by a police career where her brilliant search dogs and own dog-tracking techniques rarely got a chance to shine, Kat started training her retired weimaraner Rachel to search for lost animals-and found a whole new arena opening up. To the amusement of her skeptical colleagues, Kat decided to transform her newfound avocation into a business, becoming the only law-enforcement-based pet detective in the United States.

Using investigative techniques such as probability theory, behavioral profiling, and physical searches by trained dogs, Kat Albrecht has helped more than eighteen hundred pet owners locate their lost dogs, cats, snakes, turtles, parrots, and horses. Along the way, she has faced one-of-a-kind challenges in her work: technical issues like teaching her trained search dogs to pursue missing pets, unexpected roadblocks (how do you convince a forensics lab to conduct a DNA test on a cat's whisker?), and the surprising difficulties associated with living in the shadow of Ace Ventura. But these challenges are balanced by unique joys each time Kat helps reunite a missing pet with its owners.

The Lost Pet Chronicles tells the fascinating story of Kat's unlikely career path-and of how, along the way, doing the work she loved transformed her from a dissatisfied, disaffected cop into a woman who has found her true calling.


Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this thoroughly engaging book, Albrecht narrates, with deadpan humor and Grisham-like suspense, the story of how she came to create an entirely new career: lost pet search and rescue. As a police dispatcher and later a police officer in California, Albrecht was duty bound to give human emergencies priority over animal crises, but it wasn't until her Eeyore-like bloodhound, A.J., went missing that Albrecht saw the need for sophisticated detective and scent trail work to find pets. Going against the advice of colleagues and even friends, Albrecht trains her dogsâ€"first Rachel, a search-and-rescue Weimeraner, and then bloodhounds Chase and A.J. (who was found)â€"to scent cats and other dogs in the same way they located lost hikers or on-the-lam criminals. Taking the reader on searches for everything from huskies and terriers to boa constrictors, she describes her dogs' incredible ability to detect scents and shares her own honed deductions about animal and human behavior. Sometimes the author isn't able to find the lost animal and can only return bad news to people, like the owners of Gus, a cat who runs away days after their son's death. Yet with humor and fascinating insight into search-and-rescue work, Albrecht continues to find innovative ways to help animals and the humans who love them, and inspires readers with her dramatic career changes. With an epilogue containing indispensable information on how to look for missing pets, this is a must-read for animal lovers and sleuths alike.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Yes, Virginia, there really is a pet detective. But erase from your mind those images of gangly Jim Carrey slapsticking his way through a case. This pet detective, a former police officer and crime-scene investigator, is smart, shrewd, and possessed of a deep and passionate love for animals (puppy lovers will not be able to read her first chapter without emitting a giggle or three). Of course, anyone would have to love animals to embark on a career involving lost puppies, kitties, horses, and snakes, which is what Albrecht did when she realized that she did not have much of a future with the police department. The book, which recounts several of her cases, is downright engrossing. Readers who think "pet detective" is a silly name for a profession will be impressed with the skill and dedication it takes to locate a missing animal. Animal lovers will be alternately sad, angry, nervous, and happy. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 243 pages
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (April 24, 2004)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1582343799
  • ISBN-13: 978-1582343792
  • Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #651,227 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kathy "Kat" Albrecht is a former police officer, field training officer, police detective, and K9 (police bloodhounds and cadaver dogs) trainer turned pet detective. During her ten-year career as a search dog handler, Kat and her dogs located physical evidence, missing people, and criminals. In 1996, Kat's bloodhound A.J. escaped from his yard and was missing. Kat brought in another search dog that she used to successfully track down A.J. This is what sparked the idea, "Why not train dogs to track lost pets?" In their first four searches, Kat and her search dog Rachel physically located two lost cats and one lost dog. Since 1997, Kat has effectively utilized law enforcement techniques and technologies to recover lost pets and has trained several other search dogs and many human pet detectives.

In 2001 Kat founded Missing Pet Partnership (www.missingpetpartnership.org) a national nonprofit organization that is working to pioneer the concept of community-based lost pet services. In spite of numerous roadblocks and setbacks, Kat has continued to maintain her vision and pursue her dream to develop lost pet services that are affordable and available to pet owners. Kat is the author of the award-winning book "THE LOST PET CHRONICLES: Adventures of a K-9 Cop Turned Pet Detective" which details her quirky transition from police detective to pet detective.

 

Customer Reviews

21 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.9 out of 5 stars (21 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Touching and Informative Book!, September 6, 2004
This review is from: The Lost Pet Chronicles: Adventures of a K-9 Cop Turned Pet Detective (Hardcover)
Every pet owner should read this book! I found Kat's story to be interestng and so touching. She has a real passion for lost pets that was apparent in the book. There are joyful moments and also moments where I was reading with tears streaming down my face. I couldn't put it down and tore through it in three days. The book also contains an epilogue with excellent advice on how to find a lost cat or dog based on her experience. A portion of the proceeds from the book go to Missing Pet Partnership, a non-profit organization formed by the author.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A modern classic for pet lovers of all ages!, April 21, 2004
By 
This review is from: The Lost Pet Chronicles: Adventures of a K-9 Cop Turned Pet Detective (Hardcover)
Meet Kat Albrecht: real-life Pet Detective! Police Officer and K-9 dog trainer and handler, Albrecht has begun a revolution in the way organizations search for missing pets. Albrecht's autobiographical novel immediately drags in the reader and takes them on a dramatic roller coaster as we follow every dip, curve, and plunge of her calling to a career in founding a nationwide non-profit organization for Missing Pets. Enter Albrecht's world and see the very best of human beings and their love for their pets -- and the inspiration of true heroism. A heart-warming, joyful, touching novel to cherish and share with all animal lovers!
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book, moving story, remarkable woman!, July 15, 2005
This book is interesting, informative, engaging, sometimes sad and sometimes happy. The author, a former cop turned pet detective, is remarkable for her determination and inner strength and foresight into a needed service. She takes on a calling by herself and does incredible things (establishing a field) through her own inner reserve and motivation. I was sad that she was still alone (single) at the end and had had some hard knocks, but she is an amazing person.

Her dogs, too, are phenomenal in their abilities and accomplishments. Kat relates her finding her dogs, her early days with them, almost accidentally stumbling into looking for lost pets, and how she developed a training method and collected data on lost animals.

Great stories of rescues, and also some heart-breakers. Kat also includes some practical (and in my experience, accurate) advice on searching for lost pets.

It's definitely worth a read!
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
When I was a child, my heroes were a kid named Danny and his Irish setter, Red. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
search vest, bloodhound handler, scent article, scent particles, pet searches, scent material, humane trap, search dog, trailing dog, pet detective, missing pets, lost pets, pet services, scent trail, patrol dogs, lost cat, missing cat
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Santa Cruz, Detective Baker, San Jose, Fairview Road, Missing Pet Partnership, Half Moon Bay, Jack Russell, Scotts Valley, Officer Hohmann, Pet Pursuit, American Humane Association, Darla Robbins, Jeanne Mason, Lake Tahoe, Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Area, Simi Valley
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