If you live in Lehigh Acres, Facebook posts about lost or stray pets are nothing new. Some locals are taking action to reunite pets and owners.
"I'm just one small person and I can't not stop. I can't just drive by," Nicole Chavanne said.
Chavanne lives in Lehigh Acres and said several times a month shes pulls her car over to help injured animals. She even keeps a kit in her car with bite proof gloves, a cage, plastic bags and leashes-- ready for moments like the other day, when she moved a dead dog from the middle of Gunnery Road and 82.
She added, "I don't understand how someone couldn't take those extra steps to take care of their pets, and how it could be so out of control."
Helping those strays in Lehigh is how she met Maranda Wyatt and Michelle Miner.
Who are 'chasing tail' in Lehigh Acres, trapping and then reuniting hundreds of pets to their owners
Wyatt said, "It's an epidemic. It is out of control. We do it because we have to there's no one else doing it."
Wyatt and Miner do this outside of their regular jobs, with a team of volunteers who get messages at all hours about lost pets.
"They reach out to us because the know that we do this. They think it's our job, but it's not, but we have the equipment to do it," Wyatt said.
The most important piece of equipment--the microchip scanner. When they scan the dog, it can pull up the owner's contact--if the pet's chipped.
Miner said, "The dog itself can't speak, but it wanted to go home and that family didn't want to lose their dog."
Their biggest advice, "use a leash."
So fewer and fewer pets become like the one Chavanne found. If you're interested in Wyatt and Miner's help, follow the link to their page here.
