PARKLAND, Fla. – Missing, lost and even stolen dogs are pretty common in South Florida.
But one family has quite literally brought in the big dogs to find their missing pup.
Kika loves running on the beach with her sister Lola.
“She has been with us for almost nine years, we took her from the streets of Mexico City so she’s like grown with us, she’s our baby,” Daniela Vazquez said.
But that love of running off now has this baby girl missing, with her family desperate to find her.
Both dogs escaped their backyard after Thanksgiving, but while Lola was quickly found by neighbors, Kika has been playing hard to get since November 29th.
You can’t go anywhere in Parkland without seeing a missing poster with Kika’s picture.
This 55-pound mixed-breed dog looks like a white German shepherd, sometimes even mistaken for a wolf or coyote.
And after weeks of hundreds of neighbors looking for this unique pup and rallying the troops on Facebook pages, Daniela Vazquez brought in the professional pups.
“It’s like search and rescue, except we do it for animals,” pet detective Michelle Wilson, from Epic Animal Recovery, said.
Pet detective Jamie Katz and Michelle Wilson from Epic Animal Recovery are using five dogs to search for one wayward hound, mainly trailing scents from the ground and the air.
“Anytime a sighting comes in, we go out, and we check the sighting and we follow to see if we have scent leaving from that area,” Katz said.
This search time is logging countless hours and miles every day searching for one shy, timid, skittish and well hidden dog, but all this work is not in vain.
The beauty of these working dogs, as they search for Kika, is they are also finding other missing and lost dogs along the way, and connecting them back with their human parents.
“Part of the mission, eventually we will find Kika but in the meantime we will find other dogs,” Vazquez said.
A slight silver lining for this dog mom, who’s used helicopters, flyers, drones, dogs and detectives all trying to get Kika back home.
“We’re missing a part of our family, our whole house is quiet and its a little sad but we will find her and it will be back to normal, we will be happy again,” Vazquez said.
If you think you see Kika, call Vazquez at 954-803-5639 or email dan_vazquez72@hotmail.com. Be sure to shoot pictures and note the address.