If your dog is lost you need to take quick action. You'll need a variety of communication pieces, someone who will help you who is always by a phone with a pen and pencil, you'll need a map of the area, extra t-shirts with your scent on it, patience, good common sense, perseverance and in extreme cases you may need a humane trap.

The most important issue in the beginning is to get the word out. Go on foot to every house in the area looking for the dog and making contact with everyone in the household.

Make large 17 x 22 posters. Use very large and bold print. Duffey gets this size by connecting two 8-1/2 x 11 sheets of paper together. She covers the whole poster with clear "Contact" shelf paper to make the poster waterproof. This way it will last for weeks. Make something large enough to be seen by a passing vehicle. Include a telephone number of someone who will be immediately available at all times to follow up on a sighting. The person manning the phones will also need to get the phone number of the person who called for follow up.

Make the poster information brief, no long explanations on why the dog got loose, etc. The goal is for someone driving by to be able to see the phone number easily enough to be able to place a call from their cell phone if they were to see the dog at that moment. On any posters, notices or ads that you create add the information that the dog is microchipped or tattooed (hopefully it is). Duffey had a dog returned almost immediately after she added that information. In this instance she believed that the dog had been "removed" from its yard unwillingly and when it was known that the dog could be positively identified, even at a later date, it was returned quickly. If it's a bitch state that she is spayed. "NEEDS MEDICATION" in large print can also be an effective message. If at all possible, offer as large a reward as you can afford.

Duffey also recommends writing "PLEASE DO NOT CHASE!" on all of your signs. A chased dog will run like the wind! Another suggestion is to include "BELOVED CHILD'S PET" in big red letters. This may tug at someone's heart strings so that they will pay extra attention the next time they see any dog. Good people will go the extra mile to help if they have the information, these pieces of additional information can make it more of a priority for them.

Duffey has found that people almost always will try to help find a lost dog when it is identified as a "Sheltie." She encourages people to add the breed of the lost dog on their advertising. But don't stop there; you will also want to describe the breed. In the case of Shelties she suggests describing it as a "miniature collie." For a Bolognese, you might want to say "small white fluffy dog" or "similar to a Bichon Frise or Poodle." Most of the public are just not experienced enough to know what each breed looks like, so the description can be invaluable.

In addition to handing out flyers and hanging posters consider making your own lost dog business cards. This is easily done on the computer. Darla Duffey makes up cards with the dog's picture, the date lost, where it was lost, and any and all phone numbers. She hands those out to children, people out walking their dogs, running, riding bikes, etc. Most people are not going to hang onto a flyer, but a small business card is easy to keep in a pocket or purse.

Talk to the local delivery people -- mail men, UPS, plus oil company and electric company personnel. Ask them to keep an eye out for the dog. Give them one of those business cards with the dog's picture on it.

Seek out every child in the neighborhood (kids always know where the dogs are on the street) and give them a flyer or business card. Ask them if anyone has gotten a "new" dog lately, this may help you identify if the dog was taken in or stolen. Place a poster at the school and play grounds. And don't think that you can't afford a reward, a reward, no matter how small may trigger an alert for someone including a child the next time they happen to see a dog.

If the lost dog is a timid dog to begin with he will be hiding and petrified. Once the dog has found a hideout, it may take several days for him to get comfortable enough to come out. When hunger finally overtakes fear, he will venture out of his hiding place. That is when the mass notification of the whole area will pay off. Hopefully, somebody will see him and call a phone number from one of your communication pieces. When you get a call somebody needs to respond at that moment! The dog is going to have fear overtake hunger and it will go back to hiding.

In most cases a humane trap is a very good idea. When you discover the area that the dog is in get a humane trap to that location as soon as possible. Place food, the dog's toys and something with your scent on it inside the trap and give it time. Make sure to look for the dog at its regular meal times. Being the creatures of habit that they are this seems to bring frightened/lost dogs out of hiding

Try to keep the dog comfortable in the area it is spotted in. Find a place to feed him that he feels safe coming back to for food, and then try to beg, borrow or steal a humane trap.

If you end up spotting the dog do NOT try to chase it. Some dogs do not go to strangers no matter what, and when lost EVERYBODY becomes stranger to them, even you. Duffey reports that the dog will not wait to see if it is you, they will assume whoever is chasing them is dangerous and run away. The better way to recover the animal is the passive way, with a trap. If you have a cooperative Animal Control they may even loan you one of their traps once you have a sighting. Duffey, as an expert dog recovery person, has even gone so far as to purchase her own traps. She has learned that you check the trap frequently, release any captured critters that you didn't intend to capture, and you keep trying.

Keep a list of everyone who calls with a sighting and their phone number. This will help once you get to the place of the sighting and can't figure out what they meant. If you have their number you can call them back and maybe get them to meet you at the spot and tell you which way the dog was headed. Get a map of the area (Mapquest) and mark the sightings on the map.

And it bears repeating, when someone calls with a sighting, you must go IMMEDIATELY, not hours later. Dogs, especially Shelties in Duffey's experience, do not meander around the same place. They seem to be "going" somewhere. Either back to their hideout or a new hideout. If your better sense gets away from you and you chase the dog you won't catch it. You will only chase it out of the area. Duffey reports a lost dog will also not come to you when you call them. When they see a human or a dog they disappear. So, don't take another dog with you. That has not worked for Duffey, ever. The dog is scared to death and in full blown flight mode, another animal doesn't assuage the situation.

Create "drop zones" where you can leave food and an article of your clothing so that if the dog runs across it, the dog will stay with your scent. Duffey successfully found one of her own dogs that she had recently placed when the dog escaped the new owners and couldn't be caught. They had reports of the dog in an area, Duffey left her own shirt close by, the dog found the shirt, and stayed with the shirt until caught. "She was terrified and wouldn't go near her new owners." When possible and the dog is used to it leave the crate outside in the area of sightings.

Be diligent in your search. Don't think the dog will come home on his own. Sometimes they do, but you cannot take a chance. Lost dogs do not usually range. They usually stick to one particular area. But it can be 3 miles in diameter. The dog might have traveled a couple miles before it got to the area where it is hiding, or it might be hiding around the corner, but odds are if it is loose (and not stolen) that it has staked out an area.

Duffey's rule of thumb is to expand your search by one mile in each direction for every day the dog has been missing that you received no calls of a sighting. Call all Animal Control Officers, shelters and vets in the area. Mail flyers to all local vets within 30 minutes driving distance of where the dog was lost.

If there have been no sightings you may suspicion that someone "has" the dog. In that case Duffey offers additional advice -- make sure everyone knows this dog is being searched for, and you must be seen continually "searching" for the dog. That way if anyone does have the dog, they will know that you are not going to give up and go away. Send the message that you will be persistent until your dog is recovered. Enlist your vehicle in the search -- tape one of the signs to your car so that it becomes a search engine for the dog. Wherever you drive people will know that somebody is still looking for this dog.

Duffey also advises that dogs can be extremely difficult to spot. "Since I spend a good part of my day looking for lost dogs, I can tell you they are really easy to miss. They can be five feet away and you'll miss them, but they are creatures of habit, and even when lost, they stick to a routine."

When you are on foot searching you need to think like a dog. Which direction would your dog most likely head in? Is there another house/yard in the neighborhood similar to yours? Check that house or yard. Duffey adds, "If she's crossed a street, she might have a visual barrier preventing her (in her mind) from returning. Follow the lay of the land - which way would you be most likely to go if you were she? Take the path of least resistance. If you come to an area where there is a drainage ditch, or railroad tracks, or high power lines that is like a highway! Walk it and "quietly" look for the dog. Do not take a chance on scaring her out of the area."

Duffey's final advice, "Make sure you keep calling dog officers in the area. In some cases you MUST physically check the Animal Control facility and Humane Society personally." Do not leave the decision as to whether a dog in the facility is a Border Collie or Aussie (in the case of a Sheltie), or a Bichon Frise or a Poodle in the case of a Bolognese up to anyone but yourself. An inexperienced shelter worker or volunteer can easily make inaccurate identifications. Vets can also make this mistake so check often with the vets in the area, "Yes you'll drive them crazy," states Duffey, but better someone else annoyed than you without your dog.