Metro Atlanta nonprofit helps reunite families with lost pets

COBB COUNTY, Ga. - A metro Atlanta nonprofit is helping reunite families with their lost pets.

Chris Benson is one of the founders of the Animal Institute based in West Cobb.

"The Animal Institute was designed to be something completely different from everything else in the animal world. It was designed to be an incubator of unusual ideas that filled gaps that the animal world was missing," Benson explained to Good Day Atlanta's Lindsay Tuman.

One of the gaps they found was a rescue dedicated to locating missing pets and bringing them back home.

"When you bring that dog back, the families are crying, it's pretty amazing. You're saving a family," Benson said.

Benson said they are typically called in for more skittish animals that are harder to track down. They have a technique for these cases, starting with printing out posters with the dog's picture.

"We have our number, and we say call and do not chase and that's all we do," he explained. "We always tell people don't call out to the dog, certainly don't call the dogs, name, don't chase the dog, all of those things make it worse."

Instead, the group asks people to call in when they spot the missing dog, and leave information about a location.

"What we do is we go to that location and we set up a feeding station with a remote trail camera on it. It's a satellite camera. And we try to get the dog to settle in one place. And we give the dog lots of food, treats, I mean it's heaven in that spot they're at. Once we find there's the place that the dog goes to, then we can trap the dog," Benson said.

Sometimes the volunteers have to take extra steps and get creative.

"Occasionally, they are very skittish, and we have special equipment that's custom-made. We literally will build a room out in the open of crate parts and such, and sometimes it's 20 feet by 20 feet," he said.

For one recent case, Benson flew a Cessna with a special trap to capture a dog found in Bainbridge that was missing for two years.

The Animal Institute has seen a lot of success with their efforts.

"Hundreds, in the last two years that we've been operating, I don't have the exact number, but I can say we have hit several hundred of these cases," Benson said.

While often times it may only take a few days to bring a dog back home after a spotting, other times it can take weeks, months, even years. But no matter what, Benson said you have to be patient, and have faith the pet will be found.

"Never ever lose hope, never give up. The number of times that we have had where it looked incredibly hopeless and even with the methodology we had our own doubts and we thought why isn't this working. It will come together in the end," he said.

Benson said the demand far exceeds their abilities at this time. The group is looking for more people to help with the efforts either by donating time or resources. They also would like to train other people to help grow the network.

"We would love for people out there to take the knowledge and go create their own teams, they can contact us and we will do everything we can to help them get set up successfully because that will save more lives and reunite more families," Benson said.

To lean more, you can go to The Animal Institute's website.

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