Reward for Missing Pet Brings Crank Calls--but No Cat

Laura Latona knew she would get calls when she took out an advertisement offering a $1,000 reward for the safe return of Dawn, her missing cat. But she was not prepared for all the weirdos. Or the con artists. Or the psychics.

“It’s amazing,” said Latona, 42, of Manhattan Beach. “I’ve gotten calls from at least a hundred people, and most of them are nice, but some of them are really sick. They say really terrible things, like they ran over my cat, and then they laugh.

“Or some people call and claim they have my cat. They want the reward, but when they try to describe her I know it’s not my cat. And then I got calls from about a half-dozen psychics, all of them saying they could find my cat. I didn’t even talk to them, but they kept calling and calling and calling.

“I don’t want all this. I just want to get Dawn back.”

Sadly, Latona’s experience is not all that unusual, experts on lost pets say. Every year hundreds of thousands of pets in the Los Angeles area are lost--some temporarily, some forever. And often, in addition to dealing with the very real pain of losing a pet, people who offer rewards also suffer the indignity of being bombarded with crank calls.

Latona’s problems began Nov. 28 when she let Dawn, a 2-year-old female, onto the patio of her Manhattan Village home to play. Latona had gotten Dawn and her sister, Dusk, from a friend who later died of AIDS, so she considered them special, a legacy from her dead friend.

She said she was extremely protective of both cats, never letting them out of the house unsupervised. But on this day she turned her head for just an instant, and Dawn was gone.

Latona assumed at first that Dawn would turn up later. She was wearing ID tags, and was not given to wandering. But as the hours and then the days passed, as searches of the neighborhood and visits to animal shelters and the distribution of hundreds of flyers failed to turn up any sign of Dawn, Latona grew increasingly desperate. Finally she paid $1,100 to place the following nine-inch advertisement--set in large type and running for four days--in the Los Angeles Times classified section:

“Reward!!! Round trip ticket for two to anywhere in the U.S., Hawaii or Mexico, or $1,000 in cash . . . If you find my cat! She needs to be on Science Diet! Lost Saturday, 11/28, in Manhattan Beach, but may be anywhere. Refer this ad to friends in that area that day. Her description: Tortoise shell, beiges, golds, browns, grays, black and (on stomach) very little white. Tip of right front paw is beige (unless soiled). Shorthaired and thin body. Right eye area has marking. I know my cat; no pranks please. 310-546-9114.”

Latona explained, “I just wanted to get people’s attention. It was an eye-catching thing. I didn’t really care about the money.”

Within hours after the ad appeared, the calls started coming in.

“A lot of people called and just left messages saying they hoped I would find my cat,” Latona said. “Most of the people who called really wished me the best. But then there were the others.”

One of the nice people who called was Barbara Fabricant of the Humane Task Force, an animal rescue organization based in Canoga Park. As soon as she saw the ad Fabricant knew it might cause some problems.

“Ads like that bring out every shyster, every crook, every nut in town,” said Fabricant, who over the past 15 years has helped find thousands of lost pets. “It (Latona’s experience) isn’t at all uncommon. I called her to give her some advice, and to let her know what she was in for.”

Latona can’t bring herself even to describe some of the cruel calls she received. But she began screening the calls through her answering machine, weeding out the cranks. Callers were greeted with a message asking them to leave their name and telephone number, and ending with this statement: “If this is a psychic, thanks but no thanks.”

Despite Latona’s experience, Fabricant and others say that newspaper ads are an effective way to locate a lost pet, as are flyers (in English and Spanish) and personal visits--not telephone calls--to animal shelters. Most experts dismiss professional pet finding services as a waste of money.

Meanwhile, almost two weeks after Dawn disappeared, Latona keeps looking and hoping.

“I just keep hoping every day that someone has her and that they’ll bring her back to me,” Latona said. “Please, please bring her back to me.”