Is it 6,000 yuan for a pet detective to find a dog? [Practitioner: There is no clear charging standard, mainly depends on the distance]
Recently, a video of a woman who paid 6,000 yuan to pet detectives to find a dog and cried bitterly after finding it attracted the attention of netizens.
Many netizens are curious about the profession of pet detective.
A reporter from Beijing Youth Daily learned that pet detectives have appeared in China for nearly 10 years. There are people in many places across the country who claim to be pet detectives to help people find pets. For people who don't own pets, they belong to a niche industry.
Liu Wei, who was first engaged in the pet detective industry, introduced that pet hunting is mainly priced according to distance, and traveling to other places to find pets is naturally expensive.
Through professional equipment and long-term accumulated experience, it takes about two days for them to find a pet.
Lost puppy found by pet detectives in three days
Recently, a woman in Hubei paid 6,000 yuan to pet detectives to find her dog, and found it three days later.
A woman cries bitterly while hugging her lost puppy, and the video arouses the attention of netizens.
A reporter from Beiqing Daily learned that the video was released by pet detective Liu Wei.
Liu Wei told a reporter from Beiqing Daily that the puppy was found in a village in Macheng, Hubei. It had been lost for almost a month. The owner searched for it for more than 20 days but failed. Through the introduction of others, he found their team.
Liu Wei and others set off from Shanghai to Macheng, Hubei and successfully found the puppy in three days.
Liu Wei introduced that the puppy is a stray dog. Its owner is the woman in the video who lives in Wuhan. There are many stray dogs adopted at home. She adopted this puppy four or five months ago.
Later, the woman sent the puppy to the foster care center, where the puppy was adopted by others.
As a result, the adopter took the puppy to Macheng, Hubei, and the puppy got lost.
The woman always thought the puppy was living well, but she didn't expect it to be lost.
Due to various information errors in the middle, the woman searched for many days without any clues.
After Liu Wei's team came to Macheng with professional equipment, they reconfirmed the lost location of the puppy, and finally found the puppy in a village 13 kilometers away from the lost place.
"The owner is a very kind person. Although she has not adopted the puppy for a long time, she heard that the puppy was living outside, and she couldn't bear to see the puppy starving and freezing outside." Liu Wei said, after finding the puppy, Seeing the woman so excited, he also felt very relieved.
The success rate of finding cats after ten years in the industry is 70% to 80%.
Liu Wei is one of the first batch of pet detectives in China, starting in 2012.
Liu Wei said that he happened to see foreign reports that there is a profession called pet detective.
He himself is a person who likes cats and dogs very much. There are many cats and dogs in his family, so he is very interested in pet detectives.
Since there is no experience to learn from, Liu Wei can only ponder on his own, understand the habits of cats and dogs, and analyze the best way to find and catch them.
Now the team is dispatched, and they have to bring a lot of professional tools, including thermal imaging cameras, pipeline detectors, etc. These devices are very useful when looking for kittens who are good at hiding.
Liu Wei introduced that after receiving the entrustment from the pet owner, they will rush to the scene as soon as possible to understand the specific situation of the scene, including terrain, layout, pet habits, search and monitoring, etc.
Afterwards, the team members worked together in a division of labor, and a dedicated person was responsible for equipment search, offline diffusion, and online push.
In the past 10 years, Liu Wei has found more than 1,000 cats and dogs, and has accumulated rich experience in finding cats and dogs. He said that after getting a general understanding of the situation at the scene, they can basically determine the direction to look for.
For example, when looking for a cat, if the cat comes out through the window and the house is high-rise, then the kitten may encounter two possibilities, such as falling accidentally or sticking to the wall and walking to the corner of the gap; if it goes out through the door, it is likely to follow the safe passage Go to the patio or garage.
"Look for cats at night and dogs during the day. Cats are less likely to leave the community because of their timidity, and the situation encountered by dogs will be more complicated, and the search range will be larger." In addition, the search time is best lost within a week. The longer the probability of finding is lower.
Liu Wei said that after receiving the entrustment, their team usually dispatches three people. The probability of finding a cat is 70% to 80%, and the success rate of finding a dog is about 40%. The average time is about two days.
The high and low charges mainly depend on the distance
It costs thousands of dollars to find a pet, and there is no clear standard. Many people don't understand this.
Liu Wei said that the cost mainly depends on the distance, and the local area is relatively cheap. If the client is in Beijing, they will dispatch three people from Shanghai, excluding labor costs, and the round-trip fare plus board and lodging will cost more than 5,000 yuan.
So tasks that are farther away will naturally charge more.
He said that nowadays people are very emotionally invested in their pets. Pets are their own family members. If they can’t find their pets after they are lost, they will offer a reward to find them or pay a professional to find them.
However, some people still don't understand the cost and the fact that you have to pay if you can't find it. The pet detective will negotiate with the client, and the client can accept it before dispatching.
Pet detectives will also encounter situations where the client is unwilling to pay after the pet is found.
"Sometimes it's because the client looks for it too quickly. The client has been looking for it for a long time. We found it within a few hours after we arrived. The client feels that the money is not worth the money." Liu Wei said.
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Video Records Rescue Stories
With the rise of the short video platform, Liu Wei and many pet detectives will use videos to record the stories of finding and rescuing pets, which has attracted the attention of many people.
Zhang Zhanfei first came into contact with the profession of "pet detective" through short cat-hunting videos shared by others.
Now he has been in the industry for four years and leads a two-year-old pet hunting team.
"Pet owners contact us through some platforms on the Internet and tell us about the loss of dogs or cats. We will give him an approximate quotation and a success rate. If he thinks it is suitable, he will pay a deposit and we will set off. Search."
In recent years, due to the epidemic, the chances of pet detectives being dispatched have decreased.
Zhang Zhanfei said that he and his team have always taught others how to find cats for free.
When the epidemic in Shanghai was at its worst, they were able to help customers find 20 to 30 lost pets every month through online guidance. "We will teach him to see the traces and how to find them. There is no way to hide himself. Sometimes the owner is more careful than us, because it is my cat, I tell the team members every time, when you are looking for cats and dogs, you must let the owner follow, so that he can rest assured."
For the future, Zhang Zhanfei said that he will tend to record the cat hunting process and post it on the Internet to teach everyone how to find pets, hoping to make this industry more transparent.
Liu Wei also said that the current industry is mixed with good and bad people. Practitioners should like small animals from the bottom of their hearts and have a sense of responsibility for small animals in order to do a good job in this industry.
Text/Reporter Kuang Xiaoying, Intern Ren Siyuan