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Kenneth music rescue5/16/2023 ![]() The woman was so relieved to be reunited with the cat she didn’t even realized had sneaked out, she gave him $200, he said. “She said, ‘No, he’s in the house.’ I said, ‘You better go check.’” “I asked this woman, ‘Is your cat missing?’” Bettencourt said after going to the address on the chip. In another case, Bettencourt said he found a cat lying on a street, picked it up and took it to a local veterinarian that found its owner by scanning an implanted chip. The owner ended up donating $750 to the nonprofit, he said. “Yes, he’s in my backyard,” Bettencourt recalled one man saying.Īfter informing the man that he couldn’t legally keep the dog, the man reluctantly agreed to give him up.īettencourt said the dog’s owner was upset to hear that someone had kept his dog for a few days, but Bettencourt managed to calm the man down. In one case, he canvassed a neighborhood, knocking on each door to ask residents if they had seen a missing dog. He’s found only two missing cats out of 100 calls since starting his venture in 2013, but his luck has been much better with dogs, having found eight out of 10 that were reported missing. Following his usual protocol, he knocked on doors in the neighborhood, asking people if they had seen the cat, but wasn’t able to find the animal.Ĭats usually come back on their own if missing for a day, Bettencourt said, but may be gone for good after several days have passed. On one recent day, Bettencourt went out to answer a call for a woman who had lost her cat, Magic, in a Del Mar complex a few days earlier. In the meantime, he or another volunteer are out twice a week on patrols to help people find missing pets.Ībout four calls come in a week from people who find him on internet searches or who are referred by Helen Woodward Animal Center and other animal facilities. So far no team members have been deployed to help out in a disaster or emergency. The organization recently moved into a new office in Del Mar Heights, and Bettencourt said he is looking for recruits to add to his team, which he hopes will grow to about 30. He then did some investigative work for defense attorneys, which the former police detective said he found disagreeable, before getting the idea to become his own version of Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. Retiring in 1995, he came to San Diego and took a job for a few years working security for North County Transit. ![]() ![]() A couple of bodies were discovered every other month, Bettencourt said, keeping the homicide detective busy. Far off the freeway but near the route drug runners use between Canada and Los Angeles, Gold Hill turned out to be an ideal place to dump bodies after deals went bad, he discovered. The town of about 1,000 turned out to have a serious problem, he learned. “I was thinking about what I did as a missing persons detective, and I said I could apply that to find missing pets,” he said.īettencourt had worked much of his career as a police officer in Oakland before deciding to finish his career in the quiet town of Gold Hill, Ore. California wildfires are becoming larger and more frequent, and there has been no official group that dispatches trained volunteers to rescue fleeing dogs and cats.Ī few years ago, Bettencourt said he saw that need and thought he could fill it. The idea may sound quirky, but the timing could be right. Service Command of America, that sports an eye-catching logo with the silhouette of a horse, dog and cat with flames in the background. Howe, and Bettencourt said his title is chief of disaster relief.īettencourt wears a uniform and goes on patrol in a pickup, supplied by the U.S. Service Command of America have military-sounding ranks. In addition to having a military-sounding name, members of the U.S. Howe said it once had about 1,000 and had performed a variety of duties, but has scaled down and refocused in recent year. It’s a lofty goal for the small, independent nonprofit that has about 100 members. ![]() Howe said he reached out to Bettencourt this year to help him expand the animal rescue effort as a pilot program under his national group. Howe said he met Bettencourt a few years ago while in California and was impressed with his mission. Service Command of America in the early 1990s. If successful, the Animal Rescue Ready Reserve could be replicated in other areas around the country, said Joseph Howe, the only surviving founder of seven who created the U.S. ![]() Besides helping direct traffic or any other duties, the team will try to corral any pets that may have fled and are in danger. He also has added a new team he said will consist of volunteers certified through training with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to help law enforcement during wildfires and other disasters and emergencies. ![]()
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