Episode Notes
Senior Advisor Tara and NonprofitA non-governmental organization whose primary purpose is something other than selling goods or services. Specialist Julia discuss scenarios where caregivers must cope with a loose or missing resident. We cover three areas of focus when responding to a loose resident, discuss what to consider if you can’t find a resident, and offer suggestions for what you can do before and after an event to best protect your residents!
—
This Episode’s Referenced Open Sanctuary Project Resources:
- Protocols For Loose And Missing Residents At Your Animal Sanctuary | The Open Sanctuary Project
- Understanding Flight Zone, Pressure Zone, And Point Of Balance In Sheep And Goats | The Open Sanctuary Project
- What Is A Resident’s Flight Zone? | The Open Sanctuary Project
- A Guide To Safely Catching Stray Birds For Your Animal Sanctuary Or Rescue Part I: Supplies Helpful For The Safe Capture Of Birds | The Open Sanctuary Project
- A Guide To Safely Catching Stray Birds For Your Animal Sanctuary Or Rescue Part II: Planning For The Site And Strategizing Timing | The Open Sanctuary Project
- A Guide To Safely Catching Birds For Your Animal Sanctuary Or Rescue Part III: How Bird Type Or Species Can Impact Your Plans | The Open Sanctuary Project
- A Guide To Safely Catching Stray Birds For Your Animal Sanctuary Or Rescue Part IV: Capture And Handling | The Open Sanctuary Project
- Observation: An Important Caregiving Tool | The Open Sanctuary Project
- Observing And Recording Resident Behavior | The Open Sanctuary Project
- Resident Ongoing Treatment & Observation Record | The Open Sanctuary Project
- The Importance of Veterinary Care at Your Animal Sanctuary | The Open Sanctuary Project
Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated)
Julia Magnus: Welcome to another episode of the Open Sanctuary Podcast. I’m Julia, the nonprofit specialist here at the Open Sanctuary Project, and I’m joined by my friend and colleague, Tara, our senior advisor. Today, we’re diving into a topic that every sanctuary caregiverSomeone who provides daily care, specifically for animal residents at an animal sanctuary, shelter, or rescue. dreads but absolutely must prepare for. What happens when a resident gets loose or goes missing?
Tara Hess: Thanks, Julia. It’s definitely one of those stomach-drop moments. You walk up to a gate and realize it’s unlatched, or you do a headcount and you realize that someone’s not there and you don’t know where they are. The most important thing to remember, and we’re going to say this throughout the episode, is to stay calm, but definitely take it seriously. Panicking makes it so impossible to think clearly.
Julia Magnus: And in these situations, your actions need to be super intentional so you don’t accidentally make things worse. And believe me, I’m speaking from experience.
Tara Hess: Yeah, same. I would be lying if I said this has never happened to me. Today we’re looking at two separate but sometimes related situations: responding to a resident you know is loose and responding to a missing resident—someone you just can’t find. While the goal is always to prevent these situations from happening in the first place, it’s also important to plan for how you would respond if residents are loose or missing.
Julia Magnus: The loose versus missing resident is an important distinction, as we’ll discuss. Let’s start with the loose resident. Basically, in this scenario, you see a resident where they shouldn’t be. What’s your first move?
Tara Hess: Like so many things that we talk about, the first move is going to depend on the situation, which might surprise people. When a resident is loose, you should have three primary focuses. Those are to safely return them to their living spaceThe indoor or outdoor area where an animal resident lives, eats, and rests., to determine if anyone else from the group may be loose, and to ascertain how they were able to leave their living space in the first place. Depending on how many people you have—like if you’re part of a team and there are a lot of folks around who can help—you may be able to do those three things simultaneously. In other situations, you won’t be able to; you’ll have to do them one at a time. The best order to tackle them is going to depend on the specifics of your situation. In addition to those three focus areas, depending on who is loose, you may also have to factor in human safety, taking immediate steps to ensure guests or less experienced personnel are kept out of harm’s way. Just to give an example of this, when I was a caregiver—and I just want to start by saying I know this is a less than ideal situation and I’m not using it as an example of necessarily what to do—we had a group of goats who, for a period of time, got loose. It felt like every day. We were taking steps to prevent this from happening, but sometimes it takes time to get the money and the people to fix the fencing. It wasn’t the whole herd that would get loose; it was a smaller group within the herd that got loose all the time. Thankfully, things were set up pretty well where they couldn’t get into grain, there weren’t big risks around, and there wasn’t a really busy road. They never wanted to go too far; they just wanted to get at this browse that was really nice outside of their area. While less than ideal, it wasn’t a critically dangerous situation. Because they got out all the time, it seemed like we almost had getting them back in down to a science in terms of the order of what we did. One day we’re walking down the road, there are the goats, and it’s just like, “Okay, here we go again. We know what we’re doing. We’re going to get them in.” But then we noticed that more than just the usual group of goats were loose, including this very beautiful and very naughty goat named Heidi. I don’t even know if I would say that she didn’t like people, but I would say that she liked hooking people with her horns. She would go out of her way to get you. She would even lure unsuspecting people in with these beautiful doe eyes. She would put her face through the fence and be like, “PetAn animal who spends regular time with humans in their home and life for companionship or human pleasure. Typically a small subset of animal species are considered to be pets by the general public. me,” just so she could try to rip your hand off. Loved her, but as you can imagine, she was not someone we were bringing tours in with. Experienced caregivers went in with her and were prepared; you had to have a Heidi babysitter. To have her loose on sanctuary grounds during tour season, no less—our choreographed routine was not going to work today because step one was to make sure that nobody was disemboweled by Heidi. Every situation is going to be different. In this one, the first thing we did was notify tour guides. We had someone watching Heidi and various people making sure anyone who shouldn’t be in the area wasn’t until Heidi was safely back home.
Julia Magnus: I can see how the human safety consideration, when we’ve got friends like Heidi, is really important to keep in mind. That would not be a fun tour experience. It’s not just individuals who tend to exhibit confrontationalBehaviors such as chasing, cornering, biting, kicking, problematic mounting, or otherwise engaging in consistent behavior that may cause mental or physical discomfort or injury to another individual, or using these behaviors to block an individual's access to resources such as food, water, shade, shelter, or other residents. behaviors towards humans; you might want to be concerned about anyone who startles easily and could potentially hurt somebody inadvertently while in flight-or-fight mode, depending on their species and their size. In terms of the other focus areas that you mentioned, you said that the order you do them will depend on the situation, which may surprise folks who think step one is naturally to return them to their living space. Do you think you can elaborate on this a little bit more?
Tara Hess: Before I was doing this work, I would have assumed step one is always to get them back where they’re supposed to be. That just seems like the logical thing. Sometimes that’s absolutely true—the very first thing you do is get that individual home or to another secure spot. If your sanctuary is near a busy road or a heavily wooded area where it would be easy to lose sight of them, if the risk of predation is high, or if they could get on your neighbor’s property and you don’t have a good relationship with that neighbor, there are a million reasons why that might need to be your first step where you need to move quickly to contain the individual. In some situations where those risks aren’t present, it may make sense to have someone keep an eye on the individual while you or other people focus on the other two steps: checking to see if anyone else is loose and figuring out how the individual got out in the first place. I also want to say that with some residents, if it’s safe to do so, sometimes it’s much easier on everyone if they’re allowed to go home on their own accord versus being encouraged even gently to do so. It’s all just so situation-specific. Let’s talk about returning the resident to their living space. Even though it’s not always the first thing that you will do, some folks may be inclined to run after a loose resident, but that’s probably going to make things worse. You should never chase a loose resident, even though that is sometimes the first feeling you have—just to move as fast as you can towards them. Chasing is going to cause someone to panic and flee most of the time. The specifics of encouraging someone to move in the direction you want them to move is a bit species-dependent, but the no-chasing rule is universal. I would encourage folks to check out the resource for more information about the specifics of how to encourage a particular species to return to their living space. One important tip to consider is if you can secure the area first. If there’s any way to close gates or use other infrastructure to prevent them from leaving the immediate area, this will make things easier. You also want to block off any high-risk areas if you can. I mentioned when the goats were loose when I was a caregiver, there wasn’t grain that they could get into. That’s a huge risk for ruminants, and goats are particularly hard; it’s just a really big deal with goats. The high-risk area will again be a bit species-specific, but if there are certain things that really concern you, if you can close those off, that’s a good first step.
Julia Magnus: That makes a ton of sense. And it’s not just about getting the individual back home. There is also another focus area that you mentioned, which is making sure that no one else is loose.
Tara Hess: Depending on how the individual got out, it’s possible others have as well. This is why having updated headcounts and identification systems is so vital. You want to ensure folks can easily determine if everyone is accounted for or not. If not, you want to make sure that someone can easily determine who specifically is missing. Then you get to the detective work—Inspector Gadget time—which is the third area of focus: figuring out how they got out in the first place. In the resource, you mentioned that this usually boils down to human error, maintenance issues, insufficient infrastructure, or their physical setup. Sometimes how someone got out is going to be obvious, but like you said, sometimes it really does take some detective work if you’re not sure. Sometimes you walk up and the gate is open, or I’ve even had situations where I am opening the gate and there goes Charlie, who’s now loose. But if you don’t know how they got loose, it’s important to inspect housing infrastructure for breaches. If residents have access to a large area that you don’t have time to thoroughly inspect right away—like checking the perimeter fencing and any other perimeter barriers—then it’s best to move residents into a secure area, which might be a smaller space that they have access to until you can do so. I’ve had situations where we didn’t know how someone got out and we were working on getting the person back in, and in the meantime, we checked and realized more were getting out because we hadn’t secured the area. Sometimes it’s a matter of moving them inside their indoor living space just temporarily until someone can really thoroughly inspect the perimeter. Failing to do this could result in other residents getting loose. When checking for breaches, you want to check all gates and doors, as well as the integrity of perimeter barriers. Sometimes you do a visual inspection and it looks good, but then if you push it or touch it, you might realize that it just takes a bit of pressure—this is especially true with larger residents—for them to push it right over. When you’re doing this inspection, you also want to have the capabilities of the residents who live in the area at the front of your mind because the way a goat might escape a living space is going to be different than a cowWhile "cow" can be defined to refer exclusively to female cattle, at The Open Sanctuary Project we refer to domesticated cattle of all ages and sexes as "cows." or a turkeyUnless explicitly mentioned, we are referring to domesticated turkey breeds, not wild turkeys, who may have unique needs not covered by this resource.. Someone who can fly a little is different than someone who’s a ground-dwelling person. Keep that in mind when you’re doing these inspections.
Julia Magnus: Folks may also not realize that weather can play a role in residents getting loose as well.
Tara Hess: Definitely. Heavy rain can wash out the dirt from under a fence, which can leave a gap that certain residents may be able to squeeze through. Heavy winds can bring down tree limbs that could damage fencing, which again could let residents out. Heavy snow not only could damage fencing, but it can also create an elevated surface that makes it possible for residents to just walk over that fence. The fence that used to be five feet tall now might be the equivalent of two feet tall because of all the snow. Because of the role weather can play, we really recommend that you check fencing and other infrastructure after inclement weather that could impact it. If you have a really big storm, checking the integrity of your infrastructure is wise.
Julia Magnus: That’s kind of a timely warning because I was just talking to you earlier about a tornado warning we just had in Chicago. We just had a massive storm and I had to go double-check if any branches came down. Everybody’s safe; nobody’s in Oz.
Tara Hess: Not in Oz.
Julia Magnus: But yeah, once you’ve determined how individuals have gotten out, the next step is to figure out how to keep this from happening again, right?
Tara Hess: Yeah, absolutely. Now that we’ve talked about a loose resident, what about the second scenario, which is the missing resident? In this situation, you might go into your resident’s living space and somebody’s just gone. That can be even more stressful because of the unknowns.
Tara Hess: Right. My mind can run amok with all the most terrifying possibilities in a situation like this. But it’s very helpful to take a deep breath and try to consider the most likely explanation based on who the individual is that you can’t find. This may be hard for folks who haven’t cared for animals to imagine, but once you know your residents or even understand the species, you can often have a pretty good hunch at what’s going on. Even if it’s a new resident and you don’t know that individual well, having a thorough understanding of how the species typically works helps. Of course, this is not to say that the unexpected never happens. In sanctuary work, we know that all sorts of unexpected things happen, but it’s a good idea to start with the most likely scenario, which sometimes is that they are still safely in their living space. They are not missing, and you just need to look harder for them. Depending on what someone’s living space is, it might be clear that you don’t just have to look harder. But in a scenario where they have a larger space, then I do think that this is sometimes what’s going on. I can think of multiple times when I was a caregiver where a new caregiver would get on the radio panicking that they couldn’t find someone, and then someone who knew the individual really well could direct them with really good success to where they were or tell them to check specific places. I also remember being that new caregiver doing headcounts at closing, especially in one particular shed where there were a lot of hens that liked to perch up high or share nest boxes. I was convinced there were three hens missing, and then the other caregivers would be like, “They’re not missing; look harder.” Sure enough, one hen would be sitting on three other hens in a nest box, or somebody was perched in a dark corner up in the rafters. Before you panic, really stop and think: is there a chance they’re somewhere and I’m just not seeing them? Of course, it’s always possible that based on who’s missing, your first thought is that something is wrong. Instead of being safely in the space, it could be that an individual is trapped somewhere in their living space, or they could be loose and you just haven’t seen that yet, or they could be having a health emergency somewhere. Depending on who’s missing, one of those scenarios may feel more likely than the others. If I am ever missing an older arthritic cow resident and I see the whole herd grazing but I’m missing that one person, my first concern is that they might be stuck down somewhere and can’t get up. You could have a cow who’s a loner and is just somewhere else, but that’s my first concern. As you get to know your residents, you might have a better sense of things. If you’re missing a goat who has a reputation as an escape artist, you might suspect they got out again. Your hunch may not only be informed by who specifically is missing but also by what has happened recently. If there was just a massive storm and I can’t find someone, I might be worried they’re scared somewhere and hiding, or that the storm has compromised their fencing and they got out. Based on what you think is the most likely scenario, you can begin the nerve-wracking work of looking for the individual. We talk more about how to do this in the resource.
Julia Magnus: You mentioned counting chicken residents at closing. If you can’t find an avian resident or another resident who needs to be securely closed into predator-proof spaces overnight, this is actually an urgent situation due to the significant risk of predation and the fact that it will only become more difficult to find them once the sun sets. We consider this an “all hands on deck” situation. Call in all the help you can find to search for the individual because time is of the essence. Think about writing up specific protocols for how you want people to respond in this scenario so they know exactly what they need to do and can spring into action. I also want to take a second and mention that we do have a four-part series on catching birds, which would be helpful to have reviewed in the event that you suddenly have a loose chicken or other avian resident.
Tara Hess: Yeah, absolutely.
Julia Magnus: You already touched on this with loose residents, but once the individual is hopefully accounted for, the work isn’t done yet.
Tara Hess: Right. The reflection phase after the event is what prevents a repeat situation. What can you do to prevent this from happening again? With a missing resident, sometimes it’s as easy as communicating to the caregiving team that a particular resident has found a new favorite nesting spot, wallowing spot, or grazing spot, so that everyone knows to check there before panicking. This happened a lot with me with birds during the spring, especially with turkeysUnless explicitly mentioned, we are referring to domesticated turkey breeds, not wild turkeys, who may have unique needs not covered by this resource.. If the grass is tall and they find some weird corner to nest in, it’s easy to jump to the conclusion they’re missing because they can really flatten out in those nests. Communicating that allows someone to think, “Oh, I know that Hilda has this new spot, so I’ll check here before I freak out.” Other times it might be that you need to implement new protocols or even make upgrades to infrastructure to prevent the issue from happening again.
Julia Magnus: It can be really helpful to have written protocols before any crisis happens. For example, list who you call if somebody is missing, who leads the search, and who in your community you contact if somebody is loose. Having all of that planned out in advance feels really important.
Tara Hess: Right. Planning for these events in advance can make a world of difference because you can move straight to action since you know what you’re doing. You don’t have to waste time trying to figure out what your plan is going to be.
Julia Magnus: And importantly, it helps to mitigate the panic that we’re encouraging you not to feel.
Tara Hess: Yes. For me, if I know there’s somewhere to go to get the information that I need and some sort of guidance, I’m much less likely to panic.
Julia Magnus: Same here. I strongly encourage folks to check out this resource, which includes quite a few hypothetical situations that help illustrate how different a response might be depending on the specifics of the situation. One is loosely based on my own experience—I’m looking at you, Fuego and Storm—but it goes to show that it can happen to anyone. No shade. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach here. But the resource rather raises the important factors to consider when you’re responding to somebody who’s loose or you might be unable to find. I really do think that the hypotheticals are just helpful to read and mull over because it can help train your brain in advance to anticipate what you should do if you find yourself in the loose or missing resident situation. Having run through it mentally just keeps you calm and collected in the event that you have to deal with the real thing. Tara, thank you so much for having created this resource.
Tara Hess: Thank you. And I also want to mention that if you liked this podcast and if you utilize OSP resources, we’d really love to invite you to become a friend of the Open Sanctuary Project by committing to a monthly donation of $10 or more per month. If you go to our page at opensanctuary.org and search “friends,” you’ll be able to see the list of kind organizations and individuals who have joined so far. Our friends are critical to helping us establish our path to organizational sustainability, and we’re eternally grateful to them.
Julia Magnus: Yes, we are. Until next time, friends.
