Welcome to Animal Posse, the podcast dedicated to the people and rescues making a difference in the lives of animals. Welcome back everybody. Today we're talking about that terrifying moment that your pet goes missing, and the eye in the sky that is bringing them home. We're joined by Joshua Barry. He is the founder of Precision Drone Services.

Hey.

Welcome to the show. I am interested in learning about how you use drones to find lost pets. 'cause I know typically when people see a drone in the sky, they think people are just up there just like getting a view of everything, taking photos.

Alien invasion, government spying, intrusion, all that. Sure. Their minds go wild.

How is it that you became involved with looking for lost pets and drones?

It wasn't a direct path. So my main business, which I've been doing 26 years, is photography and videography. And I do stills and video and a very small part of that business is drone work. But nonetheless, it afforded me the opportunity to learn how to fly drones on that side of things. But I'm also, techie. I like cool technology and I'm a hunter and outdoorsy and I've got a first responders type of mentality. So when I saw these drones that had thermal technology built into them, I knew I wanted to have it. I wasn't sure what I was gonna do with it, but I definitely wanted to just have a little piece of that technology and I started. Using that drone commercially for deer recoveries, are you familiar with what deer recoveries are?

I am not.

So you're a hunter and you shoot a deer and you lose the blood trail. Maybe it rains, washes the blood trail away, or it runs into a thick area that you can't quite get to or further away than you're used to. And we. Can use these same drones that I use for pets to help a hunter find their deer. That way they don't lose their deer and they can fill a tag and the deer doesn't become coyote food. So I started doing that, and then as I was putting myself out there for that type of service, I had somebody approach me about, Hey, do you think you could use this to find a lost pet? I let you help me find my deer. I happen to lose my dog. Can you come out and bring your drone? I said, yeah, sure. So that's how that started. It really was very accidental transition. And right around the same time, there was a guy who. Was the very first person in the country named Justin Arant to use these drones for this application. He's like the godfather of using drones to find lost pets. And I met him right around the same time and he has mentored me on how to use, how to do it properly. 'Cause there's a right way and a wrong way to do things. It's a lot more complicated than just finding a deer. So that sort of developed from there, I started learning from him. I start, because I'm a videographer and a photographer, I would record my rescues and I would make these little videos and I'd put 'em up on Facebook, and that gathered a lot of attention. I was the first person probably in a 300 mile radius to do this type of work for about a year, easily before anybody else started doing the lost pet work. And then, there's others that do it too now. But yeah, I quickly gained a lot of attention for it and I've helped a lot of people and sometimes I get more calls than I can handle.

How is it that you did that first rescue of that dog from the hunter that had called you back and said, Hey, can you help me come find my dog to doing it full time? Like, when did you say, I'm gonna use it just solely for this application?

The public kind of made that decision. It wasn't like a conscious decision. I wasn't aiming to be as busy as I am. Honestly, after my first couple of 'em, I just thought, okay, I'll do it occasionally and my phone will ring several times a week, sometimes several times a day. It wasn't really a I decided that I'll take whatever comes my way. I'm not an ambulance chaser, I'm not chasing people down to let me help them, use my drone because again, we charge for this stuff. So I think it's a little unprofessional, so to speak, to be. Ambulance chasing type of service, but people call me left and right message me on Facebook and people tag me all the time in posts. So it was a very organic. Arrival at how busy I am. It wasn't like an aim of mine or I certainly accept what's come my way and I'm grateful and I'm happy to be involved with helping so many pet owners get re reunited with their pets. But it, it wasn't like on my radar to aim for that. Target, it was just, Hey, here's another thing that I could do to help people. And I had no idea how many people would be interested or how many pets went missing, again, to bring up my mentor, Justin he did a deep dive once and. He looked up how many lost pets go missing every year in the United States, and it's 10 million. And I only learned that maybe like a year ago or six months ago, something like that. When he told me, I had no idea. You don't know how many pets go missed until you join some of these lost pet groups on Facebook. And it's every day, every county, every day there's pets that go misses.

Yeah, I'm passionate about the lost pets 'cause I do run two lost pets group in my area. We don't have a lot of the drones in our area. Now, we are in the city, so I don't know if you do this more in the city or if you do it more like a rural type area. But I, I don't see anybody in our area using the drones yet.

What state are you in?

I'm in Louisiana, in the New Orleans area.

Okay. Yeah, there's more and more every day. There's actually like a phone book that has developed where, say I get calls from places that I don't go. People call me from Georgia and Minneapolis, Minnesota and Indiana, and we have this little phone book we can pull up that's on the internet and we can say I'm in Maryland, but this guy's about an hour away from you. Why don't you give him a call? So I could probably look it up and see if there are any actually in Louisiana doing it.

Do you do it more in a rural area or do you do it in the cities as well?

I do operate in the cities too if people call me. But I would say two thirds to three quarters, probably close to three quarters of mine are in either suburban neighborhoods or rural neighborhoods.

In the suburban type areas, are there like certain permits or rules that you have to follow with having your drones there?

No, the only rules that we have to follow are the FAA rules where there's certain airspace that are restricted or controlled. And if we're in controlled airspace, we have to make sure we get permission from the FAA. If it's restricted airspace, we have to apply for a waiver, but a lot of times, especially near DC they're not gonna grant a waiver to fly your drone in what's called the DC freeze, which is a 15 mile ring around DC where no drones are allowed to fly unless you have a specific waiver, and then it's very complicated to fly in that ring. And I've never really heard of them granting permission for somebody to fly a drone to look for a missing dog. There, there's a lot of logistics and security involved. You have to hire a private police officer to chaperone you. It's incredibly complicated, but for the most part, no, we don't need special permission. You just have to have your, because we're flying for commercial reasons, what's called our part 1 0 7 license. So we have to go through studying and testing to become licensed, to do this to fly commercially. But that's not a specific search and rescue license. It's a general commercial drone pilot

license. Compared to, the other type of drone work that you did in the past, do you find there's like more pressure with this because you're like almost looking for a lost family member?

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I played detective too. I ask a lot of questions. I ask about where the sightings are because this is a family member as a living being that they love and care about. You want to give it as much care as if somebody was missing their child, right? They got out of the house and it's walking around the cornfield somewhere. So I ask a lot of questions in the beginning. I ask about the dog and the size of the breed and if there's disabilities and the age, and has there been any sightings? We're playing detective. We're really trying to play detective here and figure out what direction the dog might have went. Might what? Area it might be in. And even if this is the right time for a drone to go up in the air, there's plenty of cases where, you have multiple sightings, but each sighting is a two miles away from the last one. And when a dog's moving that fast, it really doesn't make sense to put a drone up because by the time you get to that area. The dog's gonna be outside of it. So we're really measuring everything and treating it very carefully before we come out and fly.

Typically when an animal goes missing, people will usually start, step one. They'll go do either old school flyers, they'll go post on social media, they'll go walking the neighborhood, calling for their dog. At what point do they. Call you to get you involved?

That's a good question. It varies. Some people are aware of our tech and our service, so they'll call us sooner than later. There's plenty of people that call us a day or two later and they're like, I wish I had known about you the day my dog went missing, or I would've called you right away. There's other people that. Rely on traditional methods like flyers, which in my opinion, flyers are the best tool above dogs, above drones. When you can raise public awareness. And especially if like you've gone a full day and your dog hasn't returned. Flyers are the best tool because people can drive around from out of town and all the time and come through your area and they'll see your dog. But it's rare that they're gonna run to Facebook and report a sighting. But if they saw a sign on a lamppost, they're like, oh, that looks like the white dog from that picture on the lamppost. And then they'll go to the sign and call you. So I think that signs on lampposts are the best tool. So

Let's talk about, how the drones work. Yeah. So you have thermal on the drone, and then how far, how high up do you go?

So attached to the drones payload, meaning like the camera system, there's several different lenses there. You've got the thermal camera, then you've got a wide angle camera, you've got a zoom camera, excuse me, and then you've got a range finder. The thermal camera is what's looking for the heat signatures, and then assuming we're flying at night. When I see a heat signature that I would like to try to identify with the push of a button, we can zoom in, turn on the spotlight, and we can see exactly what it is in full color as bright as day, a lot of times, or bright enough where we can make an identification. We can see is it a deer, is it a dog, is it a cat, is it a coyote? Is it a fox? Is it a squirrel? Is it a raccoon? We can see exactly what it's, and then with the range finder, assuming we find the pet, we can mark that location on the map with the range finder. And that pin that I drop on my remote control has GPS coordinates attached to it, and we can transfer those GPS coordinates into the lost pet parents. Google Maps within, less than a minute. You just scan the QR code on my screen and that location will pop right up. As far as how high we fly, that depends on let's say the distance away I am from the remote control, right? How, or how far the drone is away from me. Ideally I like to start like 175 feet up, and the further away I get. The more the signal will deteriorate. So I have to raise the drone up a little bit higher. But ideally it's good to stay as low as you safely can because the closer the sensor is to the ground, the more effective it is. But in all seriousness, in all honesty, there's plenty of times where the conditions are so good. You're 400 feet, 350, 400 feet in the air. And you can still see a bunny rabbit right on the ground easy with the thermal camera. So I hope that answers your question.

Yeah, that's what I was gonna actually ask you what the range of the thermal camera is. 'cause I know like with a regular thermal camera, if you go take that out and you look at it, it's very limited range of where you're looking. So you have to be close to basically what you're looking for. Yeah.

Yeah, distance will affect that. But again, when you're flying in some really good thermal conditions, like at night the thermal camera is very sensitive on these drones. And you could see a bunny rabbit pretty clearly, you'll see a little red dot and you zoom in, turn on your spotlight and you can see the bunny rabbit sitting there.

When you do the spotlight, do you have to go down to put the spotlight or can you do the spotlight, I guess from high up as well?

You can do it from high up, but I would say to get a real good picture. To really make a good identification, you wanna be no more than 250 feet away from the object you're trying to light up. It is better to be closer to that object once you get past two 50. With the inverse square law, whatever the light starts to die off and it doesn't light it up. I've been further away and made identifications, but it really depends on factors like what type of. Terrain, the animals in how much cover it's in, what color the animal is. Like we're, if we're looking for a white dog, it's gonna, it's gonna light up from that light even from 350 feet away, because it reflects light instead of absorbing it. But if we're looking for a black dog, yeah, we gotta be close, it's good to be two, 200 200, 250 feet away.

And what about if you have a a good tree canopy or tree cover?

Yeah, so you can, and I have found animals during the times where everything has leaves on the trees, right? During the spring and summer when all the leaves grow back. I've certainly had success. It is definitely harder to do. You have to fly a little differently, a little slower, a little tighter, and then there's always a risk that you're gonna miss an animal because it's under too many layers of canopy. Usually you can find a window down to the ground and if you look at the same spot from different angles, you can see what's down there. But it's definitely harder to do and it's also easier to miss something that's down there. So you gotta, when we do these spring and summertime missions, we give all those disclaimers to the to the lost pet parents say, Hey, listen, if he's in the woods. I've had success in the woods, but just so you know, it is possible that we could fly over top of them and miss them if they happen to be under too many layers. I did a recovery once, a rescue once in Hawaii, and that was just. You're talking like rainforest level of canopy versus what we get here in the northeast. But still, nonetheless, it, you gotta be careful. You gotta fly slower, tighter. You gotta look at the same spot for multiple angles to be sure. And even then it's not guaranteed. When, like this time of year when I'm flying in the woods, like I am 99. Percent sure that if I flew those woods, that animal's not in there. The exception would be if there's like a down, like three down trees laying next to each other and that dog happens to be underneath those trees. But even then, I could sometimes spot it because if you look at it from an angle, you can see underneath those trees. But, this time of year, it's a lot easier to do for sure, if you're looking in the woods.

If you're in a suburban area, how is everything affected by buildings and stuff like that?

You mean in terms of the ability to search properly or how do you mean that?

I guess if you're searching in an area that's suburban, you have a lot of houses, I would imagine that you're gonna get like a lot of like background noise. From all the heat coming off of homes and stuff like that. And I guess just, you'd be looking at a lot more animals in a suburban area Yeah. That are gonna Yeah. Put off those heat signatures that look like, if you're looking for a dog, you're gonna see

Yeah.

Quite a few dogs.

Yeah, you're gonna see a lot of dogs. You're gonna see a lot of ventilation units, a lot of central air units that look like a dog that's nestled up against the side of somebody's house. But you and electrical infrastructure, you learn through experience though how to not waste your time to look at something. And you learn what the heat signature of a central air unit looks like, or a transformer on a pole looks like, or a electrical junction box that, those green boxes that sit in people's yards near the street, like you learn to skip over them because they become easy to identify when you're. You just start out flying, you end up looking at everything and you learn pretty quickly, Hey, I could skip that. I know that's a transformer, I know that's essential air unit 'cause I can see the fan blades moving or because it'll make the red heat signature flash. And that's an indication that, that's the. The central air unit and the fans are spinning, stuff like that. Other complications. If a dog runs under somebody's deck or a cat runs under a deck, I'm not gonna see it 'cause it doesn't have x-ray vision. I was on a search once for a cat and we found the cat and we ended up getting it back. But in the middle of the story, I'm tracking the cat as the owner is moving towards the, their cat's location and I watch it. Go under a deck. Now, once it was under the deck, I couldn't see it anymore, but I at least knew where it was. So the owner came over to the deck and coaxed her cat out from underneath the deck, and she was able to bring it home. But once it goes underneath something, the thermal signature, disappears. You're not gonna see it if it goes into a shed under a shed. There's plenty of times when I'm flying. I'll watch Cat or Fox crawl in and out from underneath people's sheds, right? They don't even go in 'em, they go underneath them. And, these aren't my targets that I'm looking for, but it's just puts an asterisk on the point of once something goes underneath something you're not gonna see it anymore, so you'll fly right over it.

How does it workwhen an owner calls you and you take the assignment, do they go out with you to the area in case you do

yeah, I, so I encourage that they stay with me while I'm searching because you never know what the situation's gonna be. And I advise them that we could find ourselves in a situation where we have to act quickly, and if I have to call them and wait for them to arrive, our opportunity. To rescue their lost pet May our window may cease, meaning let's say the dog's on their feet and they're moving rapidly and they move so fast that now they're out of the range of my drone. So it's better to have the owner there with me while I'm searching. That way we can move in as quickly and as intelligently as possible to get that, pet back with their owner.

When the owner calls you, are there any circumstances when you might tell the owner like, look, this isn't a really good scenario. I know like you said earlier, if you have a dog and it, you just have sightings of the dog running but not going into a particular spot. So are there times when you would turn down a job and say, look, I don't think it's gonna work.

There's a couple scenarios and I always give them the most amount of information in my opinion, and I always leave it up to them, and sometimes they still want me to fly anyway, but I'll give them the recommendation to wait. Here's two examples. Let's say somebody calls me and said, Hey, my dog got out February 1st. What's today's date? It's February 9th. And we haven't had a single sighting yet, and it's been, now we're talking nine days. And I'll say to them something along the lines of it, because when I fly my drone, as far as the signal range of the drone, I can really only fly about a half to three quarters of a mile in every direction. If the dog's in that area and there's some piece of it facing the sky, I'll see it. But the likelihood of a dog after nine days being in that radius and no sighting. And it depends on the terrain too. Especially like a a suburban neighborhood type of situation that's that's a pretty long time. I'd say to 'em, Hey, listen, you might wanna wait for sighting. Have you put signs up yet? I'll ask 'em those questions. Are you working with anybody else? And try to generate a sighting. Sometimes they help me out anyway. They say, listen, I hear what you're saying. I really want you to just check anyway. So that way we know for sure. And I say fine. Another situation was there's a dog named Diesel in my next county over in Cecil County. And it was lost for two months before it was rescued. I was contacted about diesel, about a month in, and every sighting that popped up for diesel was several miles away. The last sighting a month ago of diesel before he was rescued was 12 miles away from home. And I gave them the same kind of rundown. I said, he's moving so fast that. I could come out there and he has already traveled outside the range of my drone. And if we can get some more sightings and we see a pattern developing where he's starting to relax and the sightings are starting to cluster, that's a really good scenario for a drone there. And, ultimately they elected not to have me out. They took my advice and. It's a good thing too. I think that if I had come out to fly, I wouldn't have found it because it was about a half a mile away, just about a week ago where he was finally spotted. He was spotted by a farmer. The pet owner came out to that location. It was about a half a mile away from the most recent sighting. That was a month ago. And they found that he was sleeping in the hay barn. He had this little hole that he had for himself and, sleeping in there. And so had I come out to fly, I wouldn't have seen him anyway if he was in that barn because again, can't see through. He doesn't have x-ray vision. There's a case where they they took my advice and it was the right decision 'cause I wouldn't have found him. And, he was rescued because again, flyers were, in public awareness was the magic here. 'cause that farmer who saw the dog either saw a flyer in the area or knew about the Facebook post. 'cause he was famous because he had been missing so long and he called the owner right away and they came out and within the day they had 'em back. Yep, that's how that works.

What would you say your success rate is?

So I take a range of cases, so you gotta break it up because in search and rescue, there's things called negative searches. Where you fly to confirm that the dog's probably not in the area. So I take a lot of cases where there the owner is convinced. Let's say for example, the owner is convinced that they're in this section of woods and they can't get it out of their head. And they haven't done much other than post on Facebook and walk through those woods. They're not putting flyers up and I come in and break the chains on their mind about their dog being in these woods. It's very rare that there actually are in those woods. So I do a lot of those negative searches and almost indirectly it does lead to the rescue of their dog because now they're doing the right things. To get their dog back, put flyers up outside of the area that they're really honed in on. I would say of the times where I come out, where I feel, and I've explained to the owner that the dog is probably not in the area, I'd say 90% of them I'm correct on 90%. And that's 90% I come out and don't find it, but. The going into it, I feel that I'm not gonna find it. And I've communicated that to the owner. When I fly cases that have a high likelihood of success, they are between 50 and 60%. These are cases where there's a recent sighting. And the or there's a cluster of sightings that shows a really clear pattern. I would say of the 40 to 50% that I don't find, I would say a hundred not, I would say so far, 'cause I don't track everything to the T but I do follow ups with my clients. So of the 40 to 50% that I haven't found so far. With the exception of, hey, my neighbor found my dog under a deck, right? Or my neighbor found the dog under or in my shed, or in a barn, something like that. Or I had a case where the dog was in a kennel. I flew the area and I didn't see it. And then an hour after I left, the neighbor called and said. Hey I see your dog. It's in my backyard. It's in the kennel with my other dogs out back. But with the exception of those, it's like a hundred percent of those, the ones that I don't find are outside of the area, like where they turn up another mile or two away from my search grit, because we're using the most recent sighting as our search grid, if that makes sense. So to simplify that answer of the ones I don't find. They almost always turn up outside of the area, meaning I never flew over top of them to begin with because they were just runners. And then, the majority of them with the exception of being under or in something, I've always found them. When you're skilled and you know what you're doing and you know how to operate the equipment equipment it, it is pretty flawless. It is a really good system when you know how to use it.

That makes sense. With the negative searches that you're talking about, you said 90% of the time that you're right on those negative searches. And you usually will inform the owners. I don't think the dogs in this area, I don't think the cat's in this area. What is it that leads you to that belief to begin with?

I'll look at a variety of factors. I'll look at. If there were sightings. I'll look at the breed of the dog. I'll look at if there's any disabilities, right? A dog that's deaf and blind really does not go far you get like a husky? And they can live outside, they like to travel, they like to roam. And somebody calls me for a husky two weeks missing, and the only sighting was the day it was missing in the woods. An hour later. You can almost bet that Husky is not gonna be in the area. You can almost guarantee it. It's experience honestly, to level with you. Some of it's guesswork. Dogs are really unpredictable. You could take the same two dogs from the same litter raised in the same house, and they both get out and they do two entirely different things. But. I try to err on the side of professionalism and caution because again, we charge for this and I don't want my clients to think, Hey, just gimme your money and I'll fly my drone and that's all I care about. So far I have had no complaints with my clients because I am very transparent about how the process works, what the possibilities are. All of that. And never at the end of one of my searches has somebody said to me you said this and you said that. And it's always I'm glad we checked and now we know what to do. Or, you did say, and I'm glad we did it, and thank you for coming. It's always been appreciative. It's never been you misrepresented what you've said to us.

And I could see definitely where it gives people closure, especially when they think their animal is in one area. And at least you get that confirmation of, no, it's not in this area, so you can focus on going somewhere else.

And then there's, unfortunately, I have to bring this up so far again, I'm not the end all, be all of all last lost pets 'cause millions go missing every year. But of all the cases that I've flown. Anytime where we have not found the pet and we've seen a coyote, that dog is still missing to this day. That's something that is a reality. And it tends to always be the small dogs the small dogs. During wintertime, when I get a call, I'm always like the most concerned about, 'cause they're the most susceptible to the cold and they're the most susceptible to coyotes. And so where I was going with that is sometimes when we're flying we'll see coyotes and because professionally, I think I'm obligated, right? I don't like. Putting bad thoughts in people's heads for funsies, but if I see a coyote while I'm flying, I'm gonna show the owner, I have to show 'em, say, Hey, just so you know, there's two coyotes walking around right behind your house.

At least it gives them some kind of closure with knowing that.

Yeah. And that's the hardest that's one thing you can't really train for is the look in somebody's eye or the tears and the realization and sometimes I'll say when I don't see a coyote, the odds of that dog returning are actually pretty high. I don't track that. I'm not, big on being an actuary with all the nuances. So most of it's on feeling, but from my recollection, with the winter cases that I've flown when I don't see a coyote and it's a little dog with the exception of, accidentally falling in water, I just had a case that the dog. Showed back up and it was a little what do you call those? Oh gosh. It was a pug I think, or a no, a Boston Terrier, I think. Yeah, it was a Boston Terrier. Thankfully we didn't see any coyotes when we flew, and that's what she was worried about. I was certainly worried about that. And that dog just showed up in under their deck. I think it was something like that. The neighbor saw it and called the owner. It was like across the street, and I flew over there. One of the possibilities in the wintertime is that these dogs will hunker down, especially the little ones. If they're smart, they find like a corner to hide and some, a lot of times they're like along somebody's fence. In a, like a grassy area, with the snow and the ice, there's not many good places for dogs to hide, this one was under somebody's deck, and the owner heard some movement under their deck when they let their dogs outside and looked underneath, and sure enough, there was there was the dog.

Wow. Yeah. I can't imagine having to have that conversation though. If you do see the coyotes.

Yeah. You have to have a good bedside banner. You can't say, Hey, your dog's probably dead. Just say, Hey, I did see this. So I just instill a heightened sense of urgency to get flyers up and get a sighting. And, I tell them, Hey, let's assume the best and let's operate with the assumption that you know, your dog is still out there. Let's not use this as a means to justify not continuing to look

right. I have seen situations where people give up all hope and their animal does end up coming home.

Did you ever see the one video? I'm in the Facebook group with the Lost Pet Drone Pilots. It went pretty viral. It was a dacshund, I believe that went missing and he found it. And while he is guiding the parents to the location where the coyote comes in, grabs it by the neck and he lowers. His drone down almost on top of the coyote in order to get the coyote to be scared away from the dog. And he let the coyote let go of the dog's neck just in the nick of time, and the dog actually survived the attack. It was incredible.

Wow. No, I didn't see that one. I'm gonna have to go look it up though. That's amazing.

Oh yeah. I'll find it. If you can't just message me I'll find it for you.

How about some reunion stories? Do you have any interesting reunion stories?

The first one that pops to my mind is one of my first, it was like, what, within the first 10 that I did, and it was the. The dog. She was visiting her dad from college and it was in my county, and the dog got lost with the retractable leash attached and there was no sightings. And generally when I hear retractable leash, you can almost guarantee that thing's gonna be stuck somewhere. Regular leashes don't get stuck often. They sometimes do, but it you can almost bet on it. That a retractable leash is gonna get stuck. So I'm searching and searching. I'm searching the first section of woods behind their house and I'm, flying real tight and being real careful and we didn't see it. We saw all the deer and animals out there and, you can feel the sadness starting to sink in that, we might not find this dog. But again, I was just getting started. We just cleared that first section of Woods behind their house, and so I moved across the street. And I moved in that direction. 'cause again, I ask a lot of questions in the beginning when I do these cases, a lot of re recon, so to speak. What direction did you see them run, right? Let's talk about that. Does your dog like the woods or not like the woods? Those types of things. And I think she answered my question. So I decided to move across the street and there she was. That dog was stuck on a fallen tree. And the owner, 'cause we're at the dad's house. She was actually inside the house when I found her. 'cause she went in to get a drink of water or something? Actually, no. She went in to get me coffee. I remember now and I run in their house. And, I bring her outside and I show her the monitor and she's just all tears. And it was super emotional. There was one where I found an African gray parrot that was lost.. I do get bragging rights. I was the first person I believe in the world to find a lost bird with the thermal drone at least in the country for sure the girl called me and African great parrots are apparently very expensive. And she calls me because somebody referred her to me, as most people are. And. I explained to her, I was really honest with, I said, listen, I've never searched for a lost bird before. Will it see a bird? Yes, but understand, your bird could be on a rooftop, on a wire on the ground, in a tree at the edge of the tree by the trunk of the tree all the way in the middle of the tree or 10 miles away already. Like we don't know. She said, yes, I know. I appreciate all of your honesty, but literally you're all I've got you are all I have. You're my you're my last dish effort. I said, yeah, this is a bit of a hail Mary pass. Again, I asked a lot of questions where she saw the bird fly off and what direction, and when I came over to her house, I was simply. Circling trees. I went tree after tree and just started circling the trees, looking for heat signatures. And a lot of times the heat signatures you see in trees are squirrels, right? So there's a lot of like false positives. We see something in the tree on the thermal camera and we switch to the RGB camera and it's a squirrel. And your heart rate goes up for a second, and then there's a let down and. Finally we looked at this one and we zoom in and we see the red, 'cause the African gray parrots have like red on their tails. And so we see the gray and we see the red and she loses her mind, or her husband's trying to calm her down. And we had to actually call in the fire department with a ladder truck to climb up the tree to get the bird down. So I filmed all of that and that was a nice story too. It's a good, departure from your average lost dog case. And then for like present day with all the ice that we had up here, there was a dog that was missing. I went out that night, so they, the dog went missing at 4:00 PM. I was out there, they called me when I was laying down for bed actually. I had just laid down and I got a text message and I started chatting with them and got some details of the case. And this area that this dog is lost in is the same area where just a few weeks earlier, there was a dog that lives on the same type of train. We're talking like homes. On the Chesapeake, basically that are right on the water, where at the edge of their house is a very steep hill. Like two steps away from the house and you're going down the hill. And that dog Lila was fresh on my mind because Lila went down the hill and went into the water and I was at least able to find Lila to give the family closure But that was fresh on my mind. So I don't think I mentioned that to them, but I knew the urgency of the situation and that terrain. So I I got there I think at 1:00 AM 1230, something like that. They were down in Anne Arundel County and we found their dogs still alive at the very top of a hill. Sandwich between the ledge, right? Two steps in the wrong direction. It's going down the hill into the water and like a retaining wall, and he was stuck. The dog's name was happy, by the way, cute name. And this rescue was very dangerous because the dog knew that it couldn't walk. To get out of the area. It was stuck. It couldn't go down the hill 'cause it knew it would slide and trying to walk behind itself in that direction or ahead in the direction it was facing. It didn't feel safe to do that. So dad literally had to basically cliff hang off of this retaining wall and he had a very small foot pad. For his feet, where it was like maybe like a foot and a half wide, or he would himself slide down the hill. And that was interesting. I fell on my butt in that rescue. I slipped and fell in the yard, landed on my keer. But yeah, we got that one back. They were absolutely tickled pink at that one. That was another great one. And I've saved people's Thanksgivings and Christmases and marriages. The one guy when we found the dog, he's man, you saved my marriage. What he said to me, that was a funny story. Yeah, people have called me like the day before Thanksgiving or the Christmas Eve, those types of cases. There's lots of stories, but those are some of my favorites.

You just said you were going to bed, you got this call, you went out and you basically rescued this dog. So Yes. Imagine that you don't operate on appointments. Is it just like you get a call and you just go.

Yeah. Or you're in a queue because I'll be on a call and then somebody else will call, and then I have to say, Hey, I'm already on a case. So in that regard, it becomes an appointment at that. But yes, the large, by and large, I am on call. As you speak. Somebody calls me and I'm not already preoccupied with something, I'll go out and help them search.

Before we go, I would like to know where can we find out more about your company, precision Drone Services, and where can we go watch your videos?

You can find me mostly on Facebook Precision Drone Services. I'm on YouTube, I'm on TikTok. I put stuff up there occasionally, but most of my stuff goes up on Facebook. So if you just search for Precision Drone Services, lost Pet Search and Rescue, I should pop up there.

Great. And I'll include that in the description, show notes too so people know where to find you. And I'm looking forward to going and looking at some of your videos 'cause these sound pretty exciting.

Yeah. Yeah. They're rewarding to they're a lot different than deer when you're dealing with somebody's loved one.

Thank you so much. I appreciated speaking with you.

Yeah, thank you very much.

That's it for today's episode. I wanna thank everybody for listening and supporting us. If you wanna take that an extra step, consider becoming a member. We just added this to our website, animalposse.com, scroll down, look for the support tab. Our membership program is going to help us directly support animals in need, whether that be through vaccinations, food or spay neuter efforts.