Today we’d like to introduce you to Jamie Katz.
Jamie, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I have loved animals since a was a little kid, my first volunteer gig was at age 12, at the Rabies Clinic in Sharon, MA, where I grew up. I moved to Baltimore at 15 and that’s when I started getting involved with animal rescues. Before I moved to Baltimore, I had never heard the word “stray”. I also never knew that there were animals that didn’t have owners or homes they lived in. In my perfect world, I thought all animals had amazing lives, awesome owners and lived inside of a home with a family. There were animals all over the streets in Baltimore, some sick, some injured but none of them had homes or people helping them. I started taking cats home in and got my Father and I evicted from a few places. We were up to 8 cats and a dog when I was 17 years old, I turned the balcony into a big litter box… I mean what else do you do when you need so many litter boxes haha. I have always been interested in criminal justice but even more so after seeing an episode of animal cops on Animal Planet. At 21, I decided to change my major from Biology to Criminal Justice.
I originally wanted to be a Veterinarian but after learning that I could be an Animal Humane Officer if I had a criminal justice degree, I changed my major. Years went by and I moved to Florida on a whim after my dad and I celebrated our birthdays together in Fort Lauderdale. I loved South Florida and within 1 month, I left Baltimore and moved to Fort Lauderdale. I had a bunch of different jobs and then a friend talked me into getting my Bondsman license. As I was interning as a Bondsman, I met a Private Investigator and I was intrigued. I got my PI license in 2014 and my goal in life at this point was to put animals and investigations together as a career. What would be better than to combine my two passions, animals and investigations! In May 2014, my friend/neighbor’s cat went missing and this is how it all started. I went on craigslist to see if anyone found Honey (the missing cat) and I saw this add about finding lost pets. It said, “We are private investigators and use tracking dogs to find lost cats, dogs and gerbil’s”. My first thought was… this is f****ing stupid… and my second thought, was that I needed to call them. There was no phone number but there was an email address that I wrote to.
Within an hour, a man called back and told me that the K9 handler would call me in just a few minutes. The K9 handler called me shortly after and the woman said she loaded her tracking dogs into the truck and was on the way to help find Honey, but never showed up. The woman called back and told me that 95 was shut down (it was not) and that she said she would be there at 9 am the next morning. She called the next morning and said she was on the way, but she never showed. She did this again on day 3 and again never showed.
Miraculously, my friend found Honey under the house next door, she was being held hostage by a feral cat in the neighborhood. My friend climbed under the house and we got the other cat to go away so we could retrieve Honey. This was the turning point in my life, everything changed at that moment. My two new goals were, 1. to find out if tracking dogs could really find lost pets (because if it was real then I was going to do this for the rest of my life) and 2. I needed to help all these people who were being scammed by this company in Boca.
Has it been a smooth road?
The one problem in South Florida is the posting of signs and the sign laws. Our city’s should make it possible for people with lost pets to purchase a temporary permit so they can post their signs. If they could legally post signs, then they would not be removed by code enforcement. Signs are the number one way to get lost pets home. If there was a legal way for the signs to stay up, we would have more reunions.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
I am a licensed Private Investigator in the State of Florida and I specialize in lost, missing and stolen pets. I help families find their lost pets by individually profiling each case and compiling a strategy in order to gain awareness for the lost pet. I also have an amazing team of tracking dogs, Fletcher & Gable. My tracking dogs will build a perimeter of scent of the missing pet, this tells me how far out the missing animal’s scent traveled in all directions North, East, South and West. Once the perimeter is built, we blow up the sign campaign again to gain more awareness.
I am known as Jamie Katz, Pet Detective! My main focus is to set up my clients lost pet cases correctly, in order for them to have the best chance of being reunited with their lost family members. I am proud to say that I have successfully reunited over 300 pets with their families since opening Pi Jamie Katz at the end of 2015. What sets me apart from the others, is that I put my whole self into each case I work and I only work lost or stolen pets cases…
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
YESSSS… I am extremely busy working in South Florida, 10,000,000 pets a year go missing in the US.
Contact Info:
- Website: jamiekatzpetdetective.com
- Phone: 844 411 5289 (katz)
- Email: jamie@pijamiekatz.com
- Instagram: Jamie Katz Pet Detective
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamiekatzpetdetective/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/pijamiekatz
Image Credit:
Tabatha Mudra
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