View additional photos:
	Photo by Bill Green Totis and her partners, Chewy the German shepherd and Buck the beagle, have trailed after lost dogs, cats, ferrets, rabbits, cows, llamas, hens, and turtles and tortoises.

With few options available, she phoned Hampstead's Laura Totis to find her best friend -- a 13-year-old pooch who had wandered off behind the neighborhood pool.

Totis is a pet detective.

She and her partner, a German shepherd named Chewy, get several desperate calls a week, and took the case.

Along with Buck Beagle, Sam the Pointer, and her former partner, Zena, a now-deceased Rottweiler, Totis has been chasing dogs, cats, ferrets, rabbits, hens, cows and llamas on the lam for the past five years. Turtles and tortoises, too. Apparently, some hard-shelled species can make a get away faster than you'd think.

They've been called to investigate a few theft and puppy snatches, including a hostage situation involving a young St. Bernard in Pennsylvania. He was finally returned after the $500 ransom demand was met. Seriously.

They even broke up an assault once involving a fox and a peacock. It happened in the woods behind Totis' home.

"We heard her screaming," she said. "And then we heard nothing and knew something was wrong. She had been sitting on her eggs when he attacked and grabbed her. He let go and took off when we ran outside and he heard all the barking."

(The peacock survived after being rushed to emergency surgery. The fox was never caught.)

For more than a dozen years, Totis, who also runs a dog training school (www.ljttraining.com) at Carroll County's Lucky Star Kennel, led search and rescue missions with Mid-Atlantic Dogs, a volunteer group brought in as needed by the Maryland State Police. When Zena retired from her post, they started working together in the gumpaw business. Soon enough, the team was busier than ever, Totis said.

"When people lose their pet, they feel like their whole world is collapsing," Totis said. "Other people will tell them, 'Oh it's only a cat; buy another one.' They get frustrated and lose hope. They're looking for someone to turn to and who will take them seriously. That's a big part of it. And more often than not, we help them find their pet one way or another."

Totis doesn't charge a set fee, but asks that her expenses be covered and that clients pay what they can. Recovery may take time, however. Clients often make the mistake of quitting the search too soon. Cats, for example, can hide for seven to 10 days without eating when frightened.

In the case of the epileptic dog that went missing from Northern Viriginia, the Fairfax woman found her dog, Seale, the morning after Totis and Chewy's late-night search in the rain, which lasted until 2 a.m.

A local man called after seeing a "lost dog" poster of the missing canine, not far from where Chewy's legwork had led to a stakeout the night before.

"A heart condition and on epilepsy medication, the dog had nonetheless made it 21Ú2 miles into a wooden area with a stream," Totis said. "The owner went back the next morning with food, and eventually he came out after she turned around to go back to her car."

One of the first cases Chewy worked, which happened in Frederick , was closed in a similar fashion. A young couple's cat had been missing for nearly a week. Totis told them to put something belonging to the cat on the porch, along with food, to coax her home. When that failed, Totis and Chewy arrived on the scene.

Chewy sniffed the cat's tiny bed, the item the couple had placed on their porch, picked up the scent, and following clues to the backyard, matter-of-factly pointed to a feline sitting on their back fence.

"I said, 'There she is, there's your cat," Totis recalled. "And they go, 'That's not our cat. That's the crazy old tomcat we've been trying to get rid of. He's been sleeping in our cat's bed and eating her food." Which, of course, explained why Chewy tracked him down.

The couple retrieved their cat after placing a baby monitor on the porch and listening for telltale meows. "They checked each time they heard a noise and one time, finally, it was their cat."

Though it's Totis' profession, she'd be happier if her services were never required and readily offers prevention tips. The simplest thing people can do, she said, is keep legible tags on their pet's collars -- and the collars with the tags on their pets.

She recommends getting a vet to implant a microchip detection device during routine vaccines and registering the animal with the American Kennel Club or Home Again, which sends Amber alert-like notices for missing pets. Fencing the yard is important especially for aging pets.

Finally, she advises everyone brush out some of their pets' hair or fur, swipe it on a cloth, put it in plastic bag and place it in the freezer so Chewy and his operatives have a lead, if, God forbid, anything happens.

"Once they're trained and they have something to go on, they're like divining rods with snouts."

If a pet is lost, Totis said, the first thing to do is "go out, call him and see if he returns home from his big adventure." Next, call neighbors and visit the places he knows and frequents. While cats usually remain in a 10-mile radius, dogs can travel 20 to 40 miles. Contact shelters and rescue organizations and put posters in high traffic areas with a full photo of the animal, not a portrait, and list a phone number.

If you start receiving news of sightings, flier door-to-door, and put up fliers in coffee houses and supermarkets, and include a personal message stating that you miss your dog.

"People wrongly assume that when they find a pet, because it's likely skittish and messy, that the owners abused it and that's very rarely true," Totis said.

Totis was called in recently to track down a dog that police suspected was taken from a White Marsh hotel. Pet thefts are not common, but not unheard of. She noted they typically involve couples in domestic squabbles and divorce -- not rogue employees like the hotel incident in Harford County, which did get resolved successfully, though no charges were filed.

Recently, Totis spent a month with Sammy in Nevada tracking endangered tortoises, but her favorite story involves a dog named Bart.

"He was an old Daschund, missing for a week, who had been treated for cancer," Totis recounted. "They assumed he'd gone off to die and they wanted us to find him so they could bury him. Chewy found his trail and eventually went down three times into the middle of a briar patch looking for him. They asked if we'd go pull the body out, they couldn't bear it. But when we got to him, he was alive. I yelled it, 'He's alive!'

"Bart was like this poor little old man who had gotten caught in the briar patch and couldn't get out. He just looked at us like, 'What took you so long?'"