If you have a dog or a cat, you know the fear - someday they may get out of your home or your yard and disappear, lost in a place you can never find them.
It's a scenario every pet owner has thought about at one time or another, with many worried because their four legged friends have become a member of their family.
And that's where Wolfie comes in. She's a pet detective, but unlike Ace Ventura, her job isn't to make you laugh. Instead, the prodigious pooch has been specially trained to track scents and has become part of a team dedicated to bringing your friend home safe and sound.
She's the brains -or in this case, the nose - behind Waggz and Whiskerz, a company that specializes in finding lost pets in the city. Once they get a client, they put their specially trained animal into action.
"She'll pick up the scent," explains Matthew Johnson. "She'll alert me when she finds the scent. Normally, she'll either stop and sit or just pause at a spot." The canine spent eight months learning how to track missing pets and is putting what she learned into practice.
On Thursday, the crew was out looking for a dog named Tommy, who disappeared on May 24th. "We were away at a conference and we left him with dog walker," owner Josie Graziosi explains. "And she took him to Bluffer's Park and removed his leash and he ran away."
Since then, they've tried everything to find their family member, finally hiring the team to take a different look. Wolfie tracked the scent repeatedly to some railway tracks and now Lee Johnson, a licenced private investigator and Matthew's brother, is going in to have a look.
The owners are praying they find a trace of Tommy, and there's a chance they will. Wolfie has had amazing success in the past. "She's found lost cats, lost dogs," Matthew Johnson outlines. "With cats she has a 75 per cent success rate and with dogs she's at 50 per cent."
The group charges $150-$350 for a three hour search.
Tommy is 18 months old and is described as being timid around people but loves to be near other dogs.
Click here if you'd like more information on the hunt for the missing pet and
here if you need more info on the services Waggz and Whiskerz provides.