For the Love of Louie helps families find beloved pets

METRO DETROIT — The Facebook page “For the Love of Louie” helps find lost pets and returns them to their families in happy and sometimes sad reunions.

Cathy Ludwig, an administrator for the page, said it was started around 2010 by Leah Doslea. She lost her dog, Louie, and requested help on social media.

“And there was such an overwhelming amount of responses and care in the community that she decided to start up the page,” Ludwig said.

She said that since 2010 they’ve started using spreadsheets and adopted a process to keep everything as organized and consistent as they can. Using capital letters helps the posts on the site stand out, Ludwig said. They crop photos and post the relevant information.

The page is not affiliated with anyone outside of Michigan. When they started cataloging the posted pets around 2013, they found out they reunite around 10,000 animals a year. The longest time she’s seen an animal lost was 10 years.

“We have 306,000 followers on the page,” Ludwig said. “It’s the largest displaced pets page for Michigan out there.”

The page runs from 7:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. all year-round including holidays. Ludwig said they have around 18 volunteers who run the page and take shifts during the day. Volunteers reside all over the state. Ludwig has a home in Michigan and also has a home on the East Coast.

“We all take time slots and keep the page going,” Ludwig said.

Ludwig personally has been involved since 2018. She’s always followed the page and at one point she became obsessed with trying to help find a dog.

“Unfortunately, it never got found,” Ludwig said. “But that’s what really prompted me to get involved and become a volunteer.”

Melissa Hurn, another admin for the page, said the farthest she’s seen a pet go is across state lines into Ohio. She found the For the Love of Louie group around 10 or 11 years ago when she lost her cat.

“Back then they only did like a brief paragraph to tell people to keep a lookout,” Hurn said. “I never found my cat, but the amount of resources I guess, like, positive help that she gave me made me want to give back.”

She said even that though she never found her cat, helping others find their pets motivates her to check out the page every day.

Hurn said the general public loves the page.

“Because we’re such a small group, we would be much better off if we had more help,” Hurn said.

Not all on the page are “happy tails” and smiles. Sometimes, Hurn said, they have the hard task of notifying a family that their pet has died. Hurn said she will personally call the family when that occurs.

“It’s heart wrenching to tell somebody that their pet’s dead and where to find it,” Hurn said. “And some people can’t handle that, either. Everybody assumes it’s just all happy tails. It’s not. It’s people, very emotionally like, begging you to help find their pet.”

She said she comes across deceased pets every day.

“Luckily, we’re matching up more people (to) alive pets,” Hurn said. “So the good definitely outweighs the sad.”

Most of the animals posted are usually let out by accident. A gate could be left open, a car accident could frighten a pet, or there could be a slew of other explanations.

“It’s usually something (that) happened, an incident happened, and the animal is afraid, bolted, (the) door left open, garage left open,” Ludwig said.

The page helps families reunite with their beloved pets throughout the state including the Upper Peninsula. It’s not just limited to dogs and cats, either. The page helps find lost cows, goats, horses and, in one instance, an alligator.

The quickest way Michigan residents can get in contact with the page is through Facebook Messenger.

To find the page, just search for “For the Love of Louie” on Facebook.

Ludwig said the public usually directs worried pet owners to the page when they post elsewhere.

“We have quite a few regular people in the public that will just look at our photos and try to make matches,” Ludwig said.

She said residents can post a picture of their animal on the page along with the pertinent information such as breed, name and other features.