It’s a dog gone shame.
When Stacy and Charlie Heiland’s two beagles escaped from their fenced yard last Saturday, the couple and their young son were devastated, especially since Copper, a 1-year-old miniature beagle, is just about to give birth.
They tried the traditional search methods since Copper and her brother Trigger, a full-sized, 7-year-old beagle, tend to stick around their home on Lick Creek, between Hamilton and Darby.
“We went looking for them all over, and half the town of Darby was looking all over, too,” Stacy Heiland said on Thursday. “We also called the Humane Society, area veterinarians and animal shelters.”
She said they searched all night. When that proved fruitless, the couple did what any millennial worth their woof would do: They took their search online, and are hoping to expand the number of people looking for their dogs by sharing their Facebook posts to doggie search sites including Fetching TED, Finding Bella, and the Bitter Root Humane Association, among others.
That’s a tactic that Jennifer Reighard at the Bitter Root Humane Association said is becoming more and more popular. They put together a Bitter Root Animal Lost & Found Facebook page, which had 1,173 members as of Thursday and 17 new posts that day alone.
“It’s had a lot more people responding that I expected,” Reighard said. “I find more people starting to go on it and share, which is great. Then other people share the posts to other pages, and the next thing you know it’s showing up in Idaho and Florida. It seems to be getting the pets back to their owners faster.”
Eve Burnsides, the shelter's operations manager, said the online posts are decreasing the number of calls they get for lost, found or abused pets from about 700 a year to 600 last year. She added that they manually log every call to try to connect pets and owners.
"So we're not only up to date but do the old-fashioned log book," she said. "We connect people and animals, so they never need to come to the shelter."
She does encourage people to swing by her facility or a veterinarian with a found pet to see if it has a microchip that can be scanned. In those cases, they often can reunite pets and owners within an hour.
With more than 300 shares of their posts on the various Facebook pages, the Heiland family hopes that someone out there in the online world will know what happened to Copper and Trigger, and reunite them with the three other family dogs.
They’re also using their internet sleuthing skills to find out if someone took their pets, especially since Copper is pregnant and no beagles have been listed on the Missoula Craigslist site for eight months — until after the dogs were gone.
“Yesterday morning, a friend found a small beagle on there for $500,” Stacy Heiland said. “She didn’t get the contact information right away, but when she went back someone had deleted the post. That seems pretty suspicious.”
They’ve contacted area veterinarians in case someone comes in with a pregnant beagle needing a Cesarean section. In addition, Stacy Heiland said they’re offering a $1,000 reward for the return of the dogs. Copper’s due date is Feb. 5.
Anyone with information can call her at 360-7773.
“The dogs are so attached to us. We want them to come home,” she added.