Skip to content

Central Alberta woman helps owners reunite with their missing pooches

Sundre’s Kim Taylor helps dog owners
11290039_web1_29939080_10156349370683112_72414321_n

With heavy-duty boots, a drone and a tracking dog by her side, Central Alberta’s Kim Taylor knows she has a job to do – find lost dogs.

Taylor, who lives west of Sundre, started helping dog owners find their lost fur babies after she lost one of her dogs, about five years ago. Ryley, a chocolate lab, went missing in the woods and Taylor never saw him again.

“Simply because we didn’t know what to do to find him,” said Taylor.

Today, her Facebook timeline is full of pictures and posts of missing or found dogs. She helps dog owners in Mountain View, Clearwater, and Rocky View County, find their pups.

“My heart goes out to lost dogs, because I can only imagine how Ry (Ryley) must’ve felt being lost,” she said.

Taylor usually has her tracking dog Brandy by her side, when she is out in the wilderness.

She said she has trained “Brandy Brown Sugar Taylor,” a five-year-old chocolate lab, to help her with the rescue missions.

Brandy sniffs the lost dog’s bed and leads the way – sometimes on foot with her owner and other times on a quad. When the dog is found, she steps aside and lets Taylor do her job: attract them to her while standing a few blocks away.

Taylor said Brandy does things like urinate to let Taylor know the duo is close and also alerts her of wild animals in the area.

“If there’s a cougar, my dog will back up and shake, which means don’t go any further, so she does keep me quite safe that way,” she said.

In the past five years, she has rescued dozens of dogs. Taylor doesn’t charge for her services, but asks to cover fuel costs and a “pay it forward” donation that the owners feel is sufficient.

The rescue missions bring both good and bad news for the dog owners and Taylor. In the last two months for example, Taylor has found nine dogs, but all of them dead.

But that doesn’t stop her from carrying on her work.

“I have the passion for it, I just want to help and bring these guys back home,” she said.



mamta.lulla@reddeeradvocate.com

Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter

11290039_web1_Brandy
Brandy Brown Sugar Taylor, a five-year-old chocolate lab helps Central Alberta’s Kim Taylor find lost dogs. Photo supplied
11290039_web1_Ryley
Kim Taylor, who lives west of Sundre, said she started helping owners find their lost dogs after she lost one of her dogs – Ryley. Photo supplied
11290039_web1_30019969_10156349557263112_441310388_n
Kim Taylor, who lives west of Sundre, said she started helping owners find their lost dogs after she lost one of her own dogs. Photo supplied