Dogged persistence helps pet detectives locate missing animals
Heartbreaking moments
Zhao is always relieved when he secures a happy ending. He has witnessed too many heartbreaking moments when pets were found to have been hit by cars and were lying dead on the roadside, while others had disappeared without a trace, leaving an eternal mystery about where they had gone.
In one case, a young woman in Yantai, Shandong province, posted search notices on her WeChat account every day. Her dog had run up into the mountains, and despite searching for two days, Zhao couldn't find it. He suspected that the dog had most likely been eaten by wild animals in the mountains.
"My heart aches: I truly don't know how to move forward," the young woman wrote in a WeChat conversation with the pet detective.
"I know I still have work to do and a life to live, but my dog is part of my life. Its absence has taken a piece of my soul with it."
Desperate pet owners may even turn to fortunetellers in the hope of gaining hints about their pet's whereabouts. One owner told Zhao that a fortuneteller had informed her that her cat, which had been missing for 13 days, had run 4 km south to a place with water, where it was basking in the sun under a corner of a wall near a garbage dump.
The vivid description left Zhao feeling ridiculous. "It doesn't make sense," he said. "Anyway, a cat couldn't have run that far."
Many years ago, Zhao lost a Corgi dog that he was unable to find. For a long time, his son sat on the balcony every day, looking down and eagerly asking him, "Daddy, do you think Dumpling (the dog's name) will come back?"
When Zhao first became a pet detective, he was often moved to tears when he witnessed owners embracing their returned pets and shedding tears of joy. He would also feel guilty and blame himself when he couldn't find a pet.
Nowadays, he sees his work more as a profession, and when he tries his best but can't find the lost pet he accepts the situation with equanimity. He advises the owners to adopt the same approach.
