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Eye In The Sky Thermal Drone Pet Rescue, 2207 Woodfield Road, Bloomington, IL (2026)

Eye in the Sky Thermal Drone Pet Rescue — Dedicated to reuniting lost pets with their families using advanced thermal drone technology and a deep understanding of lost pet behavior.

09/05/2026

Story coming tomorrow out of Cullum, IL.

09/03/2026

❤️🐾She Wasn’t Alone🐾❤️

The Story of Dixie

Tuesday morning, I received a message from a woman named Rhonda in Mt. Carroll, Illinois.

Her 15-year-old dog, Dixie, had disappeared during a storm three nights earlier.

They were surrounded by cornfields. The family had searched, but Dixie was still missing.

I had about a two-and-a-half-hour drive to get there.

When an elderly dog goes missing, one of the first things I want to understand is why.

Did something frighten her? Was she confused? Was she looking for something? And with a dog of Dixie’s age, you also have to consider the possibility that she wandered away to find a quiet place to pass.

But after spending time with the family and talking through the circumstances surrounding Dixie’s disappearance, I didn’t get that feeling.

I didn’t believe Dixie had gone off to die.

I believed she had gone looking for her people.

Mom and Dad weren’t home.

I see this sometimes when families go away and friends or relatives come in to care for their pets. A dog doesn’t understand a vacation. They only know that the people who are normally there suddenly aren’t.

And sometimes, I believe, they go looking for them.

In Dixie’s case, there was something else.

Thunder and lightning.

Dixie was frightened of storms.

Her people weren’t home. Her normal routine had changed. Then came something she was already afraid of.

I believe those things compounded, and somewhere in the middle of it all, Dixie left.

Dixie was also what I call a country dog.

Country dogs often have a much broader map of their surroundings. They know the fields, waterways, tree lines and neighboring properties. Their normal territory can extend well beyond their own yard.

Dixie was very much that kind of dog.

Relatives lived nearby, and she would routinely travel from one family home to another.

She knew this countryside.

That mattered.

Every detail matters in a search.

A dog’s age, personality, fears, habits and familiarity with an area can help me understand why they may have left, how far they may have traveled and where I should concentrate my efforts.

The drone is an incredible tool.

But before I ever find the dog on the screen, I’m trying to understand the dog on the ground.

At some point, Rhonda asked me a difficult question.

“What if Dixie is deceased? Can you still find her?”

She also asked what I thought our chances were of finding her.

I wanted to be realistic.

Even with optimal thermal conditions, I told her I thought our chances were probably fifty-fifty. There were leaves, heavy cover, corn and countless places where a dog could be completely obscured from the thermal camera.

Thermal technology is an incredible tool, but it cannot see through everything.

There was another thought I kept to myself.

It’s something I think about often when I’m facing another long drive or a difficult search with absolutely no guarantee of success.

If we don’t try, our chances are zero.

It’s one of the reasons I make these drives and put in the effort even when the odds aren’t particularly good.

Because there’s always a chance.

And there’s always hope.

After spending time with the family and putting together as many of those puzzle pieces as I could, I launched the drone and began searching the cornfields.

I flew one battery.

Then I made a decision.

I left the corn.

Based on everything I had learned about Dixie, I wanted to look differently.

I crossed the road and began searching waterways and field edges—places where I have found lost dogs many times before.

At that point, I wasn’t simply searching for a heat signature.

I was trying to follow Dixie’s story.

Where might a 15-year-old country dog have traveled?

And after three days away from home, where might she finally have stopped?

At approximately 1:40 in the morning, I got my answer.

Running through the center of one of those waterways was almost a trench, with water flowing along the bottom.

Down inside that trench was Dixie.

We had found her.

But looking at the way she was lying there, I did not believe she was alive.

I’m not sure her family believed she was alive either.

Three days of blistering heat.

Three nights away from home.

And now this 15-year-old dog was lying motionless down in the water.

As her family reached Dixie and began carrying her out of the trench, I continued watching through the drone.

At one point, I thought I saw her head come up.

But I wasn’t sure.

Had Dixie lifted her head? Or was someone supporting it as they carried her?

From where I was watching, I simply couldn’t tell.

After everything she had endured, it was difficult for me to believe she could still be alive.

I don’t know how long Dixie had been lying in that water.

I don’t know when she entered the trench.

My belief is that she may have gone there during the heat of the day to cool herself. But by the middle of the night, that same water had become chilly.

And I don’t know whether, by the time her family reached her, this strong-willed old dog physically had enough left to get herself out.

I waited back at the farm for Rhonda and her husband to return.

When they pulled in, Rhonda was holding Dixie.

Then she said the words I had been hoping to hear.

“She’s alive.”

Dixie was cold.

She was wet.

And I believe she was disoriented.

Rhonda’s husband said she might be hypothermic.

Then, standing there holding Dixie in her arms, Rhonda said something that would stay with me for the entire drive home.

“If she dies, at least she won’t have to die alone.”

That hit me particularly hard.

Earlier that night, Rhonda had asked me whether the thermal drone could still find Dixie if she was deceased.

Now she was holding her.

Alive.

We didn’t know what was going to happen next.

But Dixie wasn’t alone.

I packed up my equipment, got into the van and started the two-and-a-half-hour drive home.

By the time I arrived, the sun would be coming up.

During a search, there isn’t always time for emotion.

You’re working. Thinking. Making decisions. Watching the screen. Trying to put together every piece of information you’ve been given because somebody’s family member is out there and needs you to get it right.

It’s afterward, when the equipment is packed away and the road gets quiet, that the reality of what happened begins to come in waves.

And all the way home, I kept hearing Rhonda’s words.

At least she won’t have to die alone.

I thought about Dixie lying in that water.

I thought about how close her family had probably been to her without ever knowing she was there.

I thought about how easily I could have continued searching those cornfields instead of crossing the road.

And I thought about all the families who don’t get this moment.

The families who search and never get an answer.

The families who never get the recovery.

The families who never get the opportunity to scoop their pet up one more time, hold them against their chest and bring them home.

My heart hurts for those families.

Because sometimes recovery doesn’t necessarily mean getting the ending we desperately want.

Sometimes it simply means bringing them back to the people who love them.

Dixie has already proven she’s a fighter.

About five years ago, she developed c**n paralysis. Her family nursed her for approximately three months, and Dixie fought her way through it.

She’s a farm dog.

A tractor-riding companion.

A familiar face in her community.

And one 15-year-old country dog who is quite simply tough as nails.

After we found her, her family rushed her to the emergency veterinarian.

She was in critical condition.

The last update I received was that Dixie was slowly moving in the right direction.

She still has some fighting to do.

But whatever happens from here, at 1:40 that morning something important changed.

She wasn’t alone anymore.

As I drove home and watched the darkness begin to give way to morning, I was reminded again how thankful I am for the opportunity to do this work.

To be trusted by these families.

To have the tools and experience to help.

And sometimes, to be in the right place at the right time.

I don’t know why some searches turn out the way they do.

But I know why I keep trying.

There’s always a chance.

And there’s always hope.

That night, we found Dixie.

And whatever comes next, she is back in the arms of the people who love her. 🐾❤️

⸻

If You’d Like to Support My Work

The work I do through Eye in the Sky Thermal Drone Pet Rescue has one purpose:

Reuniting pets with their families.

Sometimes that means driving hours in the middle of the night. Sometimes it means flying a thermal drone over cornfields and waterways. Other times it means cameras, traps, road signs, food stations, or simply spending time with a family learning everything I can about their lost pet.

There always needs to be forward progress.

A family’s ability to pay will never determine whether they or their pet deserve my best effort.

If you would like to support this work, contributions help with fuel, equipment, cameras, traps, signs and the many other expenses that allow me to get to the next family and the next animal who is loved and needs help getting home.

Every contribution helps. Every share helps. And every person who follows these stories and supports what I do helps keep this work sustainable.

https://venmo.com/u/Eye_In_The_Sky

https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/8DSNM6CFXQSAN

Mail to:
Eye In The Sky
2207 Woodfield Road
Bloomington, IL 61704

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to continue doing work I am incredibly thankful to do.

Eye in the Sky Thermal Drone Pet Rescue
“Reuniting pets with their families”

09/02/2026

❤️🐾 She’s Alive!! 🐾❤️

Last night’s rescue mission was a success. With time running out and a will to survive, this story is emotional. I’ll try to put it all together and post this evening.

08/30/2026

❤️🐾The Nose Knows🐾❤️

-The Story of Pepper-

Sometimes the simplest recoveries carry some of the most important lessons.

When I arrived in Clinton, Illinois, we flew for Pepper.

I spent time with his family, trying to understand what had happened, what they knew, and what might help us determine where Pepper had gone. We searched from the air, but when it was all said and done, we really didn’t have a direction.

North?

South?

East?

West?

We simply didn’t know where Pepper was.

But there comes a point in a recovery when, if the thermal drone doesn’t locate the dog, you still have to make forward progress.

The drone is an incredible tool. I’ve seen firsthand what thermal technology can do in lost-pet recovery.

But it is still just one tool.

And I think that’s something some people may not fully understand about what I do.

I am not just a thermal drone pilot experienced in locating lost dogs.

I am a trapper. I am a Pet Recovery Specialist.

We have thermal drones. We have cellular cameras. We have traps. We have signs. We use scent items, food and water stations.

And maybe most importantly, we have the knowledge and experience to understand which of those tools makes sense for the situation in front of us.

Sometimes the drone finds the dog.

Sometimes a camera gives us the information we need.

Sometimes signs put hundreds of additional eyes along the roads and produce the sighting that changes everything.

And sometimes the answer is a trap sitting quietly inside a garage.

The tool may change. The recovery doesn’t stop.

Something should always be moving the recovery forward.

I believe in being aggressive about recovery—but aggressive in a very low-pressure environment.

And I want to be clear about what I mean by that.

Aggressive recovery does not mean chasing a frightened dog or unnecessarily putting pressure on him.

To me, it means doing everything we possibly can, using every appropriate tool available to us, while at the same time giving that dog the space and time he needs to make critical decisions.

We can be working hard while allowing the dog to slow down.

We can be doing more while asking less of him.

Signs can be going up.

Cameras can be watching.

Scent can be working.

Food and water can be available.

A trap can be waiting.

All while the dog is given the space to move without us constantly pushing him.

Pepper already had a reason to come home.

His family.

We didn’t need to give him a reason.

Our job was to do everything we possibly could to help guide him back home—and to make sure we were ready for him when he got there.

And that’s where something I learned years ago from my friend Charlene Walsh became so important.

The first time I ever met Charlene was on a recovery down in Decatur.

I watched her work.

Before making decisions, she spent time with the owner. She listened. She learned about the dog and tried to understand the circumstances surrounding the disappearance.

And then she did something incredibly simple.

She placed the trap right at the home the dog had gone missing from.

I was watching.

And I was learning.

I don’t know if Charlene realized at the time how much I was taking in that day, but that lesson stayed with me.

And I am incredibly grateful that it did.

A lost dog may travel. He may wander farther than anyone expects. We may have absolutely no idea where he is.

But he knows where home is.

There is another important part of this.

Sometimes lost dogs actually do make it back home.

But if they return and don’t find somewhere they feel safe or secure—somewhere that allows them to settle—they may simply leave again.

You can have the moment you’ve been waiting for and never even know it happened.

So yesterday in Clinton, with no known direction of travel for Pepper, that lesson I learned from Charlene years ago made sense again.

I placed my live trap inside the family’s garage.

We left the garage door open just enough for Pepper to get underneath it and enter if he returned.

But we didn’t simply put a trap in the garage and hope Pepper happened to find it.

We placed used scent items outside the garage door, carrying familiar smells from home. We put food outside as well, and continued those attractants into the garage.

We were doing everything we could to help guide Pepper toward something he already knew.

Home.

Familiar scent.

Food.

His garage.

His family nearby.

And inside, a safe and secure way to make sure that if Pepper came all the way back, he didn’t have an opportunity to wander away again.

Then came the part of recovery that can sometimes be harder than all the activity.

We waited.

The drone had flown.

The plan had been made.

The scent items were out.

The food was in place.

The trap was set.

Now we needed to take the pressure off and give Pepper the space and time to make his own decisions.

At 4:48 AM, the trail camera captured the photograph we had hoped to see.

Pepper had come home.

There he stood.

Inside the trap.

Inside his family’s garage.

Safe.

Right around the 24-hour mark.

And when I look at that photograph, I see much more than a dog standing inside a trap.

I see the importance of scent.

I see the importance of having multiple tools available in a recovery.

I see why sometimes the best thing we can do after working incredibly hard is to back away and give a dog the opportunity to work things out.

And I see something else.

I see Charlene.

Years ago, I stood back in Decatur and watched someone with more experience than me assess a situation and make a simple, thoughtful decision.

She probably had no idea that I would carry that lesson with me.

But I did.

That’s one of the beautiful things about this work.

We learn from the animals.

We learn from the families.

And if we’re willing to watch and listen, we learn from one another.

Then someday, maybe years later, we find ourselves reaching back for one of those lessons when another family needs it.

This time, that family was Pepper’s.

We never did figure out whether Pepper had gone north, south, east or west.

Maybe we didn’t need to.

Because while we were doing everything we could to help guide Pepper home, Pepper was doing his part too.

He was finding his way back to the people he loved.

The Nose Knows. ❤️

⸻

The help I provided to Pepper and his family came at no cost to them because of their current financial circumstances.

I want people to understand something about that because it is important to me.

I will not turn a family away simply because they cannot afford my help.

I have never billed or invoiced a single family for the work I do.

I ask for support, but it is not a demand.

My philosophy is simple:

Give what you can, if you can.

Some families are able to contribute toward the cost of their recovery. Some aren’t.

Their ability to pay will never determine whether they or their pet deserves my best effort.

And that’s one of the reasons I am so grateful for everyone who supports Eye in the Sky Thermal Drone Pet Rescue.

When you donate, sometimes you’re helping a family you will never meet.

Your support helps put fuel in the van. It puts the drone in the air. It puts cameras in the field and signs along the roads. It keeps traps available and all of the other tools of recovery ready for the moment they’re needed.

And sometimes your support helps put a trap inside a quiet garage, with familiar scents leading toward it and the door cracked open just enough, waiting for one little boy to find his way home.

This time, his name was Pepper.

And at 4:48 in the morning, he did. ❤️

Eye in the Sky Thermal Drone Pet Rescue
Reuniting pets with their families.

https://venmo.com/u/Eye_In_The_Sky

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Mail to:
Eye In The Sky
2207 Woodfield Road
Bloomington, IL 61704

08/27/2026

🐾❤️ Olaf - Biggsville, IL ❤️🐾

Yesterday, I traveled to Biggsville, Illinois, to help a family searching for Olaf, a Great Pyrenees who hadn’t been part of their family for very long.

Olaf was recently adopted.

But sometimes it doesn’t take very long for a dog to figure out where he belongs.

The family had been doing something with Olaf that probably seemed like nothing more than part of everyday life.

They walked him.

They took him around their neighborhood regularly, allowing him to experience the world surrounding his new home.

During those walks, they had noticed something about Olaf.

His attention could be grabbed pretty easily by rabbits, squirrels, and other little creatures that caught his eye.

Then one day, something apparently caught his attention a little too much.

Olaf jumped through a window screen and took off.

When I arrived, I spent a lot of time talking with the family before deciding how I wanted to approach the search.

I wanted to understand Olaf.

How was he adjusting to his new family?

What was his nature?

Was he comfortable there?

What did they see when they walked him?

How did he react to people?

What would cause him to leave?

Those conversations matter.

Every lost dog is different, and understanding why a dog left can sometimes be just as important as knowing where he was last seen.

The more I listened, the more comfortable I became with one thought:

Olaf didn’t want to leave this family.

Nothing they told me suggested that.

Instead, I believed that for one brief moment, Olaf saw something he simply couldn’t resist investigating.

He wasn’t necessarily running away from home.

He was running toward something interesting.

That’s a very important distinction.

And based on everything I learned about Olaf, my feeling was that he wouldn’t be very far away.

There were a lot of things working in his favor.

First was his size.

Olaf is a Great Pyrenees. I didn’t have the same concerns about predator threats that I would have with a small dog.

He was also comfortable being outside.

And Olaf has a wonderful nature about him.

He’s a kind, gentle, big baby who will happily and easily walk up to someone and say hello.

That matters in a lost-dog recovery.

Some dogs, once they’re loose and frightened, become extremely difficult to approach. They may avoid people, run from anyone trying to help, and sometimes even run from their own family.

From everything I learned about Olaf, that wasn’t the dog I believed we were dealing with.

He also had something I sometimes think of as country-dog sense.

I’ve thought about this through many recoveries.

Dogs that are accustomed to being outside—walking, exploring and experiencing the world beyond the inside of a house or the boundaries of a backyard—often seem to keep their wits about them a little differently when they suddenly find themselves on their own.

As humans, we might call it being street smart.

I’ve seen just how powerful that can be.

I saw it with Cassie in Decatur.

Cassie came from the tragedies in Puerto Rico and had spent years as a Puerto Rican street dog. She was incredibly intelligent, resourceful and street smart.

In Cassie’s case, those survival skills made the recovery more difficult.

She knew how to survive.

And she knew how to elude us.

Olaf wasn’t Cassie. His personality was completely different. But that experience reinforced something I had already thought about extensively long before I ever met Olaf:

A dog’s experience with the world matters when that dog becomes lost.

And when Olaf’s family told me that they regularly walked him throughout the neighborhood, it made me even more confident that he had a good chance of finding his way back.

Because Olaf’s familiar scent landscape wasn’t confined to four walls or even just a backyard.

It stretched throughout the neighborhood.

Every walk had given him an opportunity to experience the smells surrounding his home.

The streets.

The yards.

The trees.

Other animals.

People.

Houses.

Intersections.

And thousands of other scents that we probably never even notice but that a dog’s nose is constantly processing.

All of that becomes part of the world a dog knows.

I’ve thought about how to explain this in a way that makes sense.

Imagine trying to find a cup of water.

Now imagine trying to find a swimming pool.

That’s how I think about the advantage Olaf had.

If the only familiar scent an animal knows is concentrated around one house or one backyard, you’re asking that animal to locate a relatively small target.

But if that dog has regularly traveled throughout the surrounding neighborhood, his known scent landscape is much larger.

Instead of a cup of water, you’ve given him a swimming pool.

The larger his known area is, the wider that familiar scent column can potentially become, giving him more opportunities to encounter something recognizable, orient himself toward his neighborhood and eventually work his way back toward home.

That’s why there is something in Olaf’s story that I believe every dog owner should consider.

Walk your dog.

Get them out of the house.

Get them around the block.

Let them smell.

Let them experience their neighborhood.

Let them learn the world surrounding their home.

You’re giving them exercise and enrichment, absolutely.

But you may also be giving them something you never expect them to need.

A way to recognize home from farther away.

Of course, we weren’t going to simply sit back and wait for Olaf to figure it out.

We went to work.

The family and I put together six large road signs.

Once all six were completed and ready, they headed out to place them throughout the area.

I also made another 35 flyers with Olaf’s picture and contact information.

Those could be handed out to local businesses, homes and anyone else willing to take the information.

Every flyer meant another person who might recognize that big white dog.

Another set of eyes looking for Olaf.

I also told the family to bring the inside of their house outside.

Used clothing.

Food.

Familiar items.

Anything carrying the smells Olaf associated with his new family and his new home.

If he was nearby, I wanted to give him every possible opportunity to recognize where he belonged.

And while all of this was happening, there was another member of Olaf’s family who desperately wanted to be there.

Dad is a truck driver.

He was away from home.

I could hear how concerned he was about Olaf, but I could also hear how concerned he was about his family.

That kind of helplessness is difficult.

It’s one thing to have your dog missing when you’re standing there searching.

It’s another thing entirely to be miles away, knowing the dog your family has already grown to love is somewhere outside and knowing the people you love are back home trying to find him.

You want to help.

You want to protect them.

You want to fix it.

But sometimes your responsibilities have you somewhere else.

All you can do is wait for the phone to ring.

Yesterday, we did everything we could to give Olaf an advantage.

We learned everything we could about him.

We got signs on the roads.

We put 35 more flyers into the community.

We brought the smells of home outside.

And I remained confident in something his family had already been giving Olaf long before he ever went missing.

They had been teaching him his neighborhood.

Then today, Olaf answered the question everyone had been asking.

Where are you, buddy?

Olaf came home.

He wound up on his family’s porch.

Not running past the house.

Not wandering farther away.

Not needing someone to capture him.

Olaf was sitting on the porch, waiting to be invited back inside.

There is no way for any of us to know exactly what Olaf smelled along the way, what he recognized or what ultimately guided him back. I won’t pretend that we can know that.

But I do know what I believed after sitting with his family yesterday.

Olaf wasn’t trying to leave them.

Something caught his attention.

For one brief moment, curiosity won.

Then the adventure happened.

But Olaf had some things going for him.

He was big.

He was comfortable outdoors.

He was friendly.

He knew people weren’t necessarily something to fear.

He had experience with the world around him.

And perhaps most importantly, his understanding of home extended far beyond the walls of the house.

His family had walked him.

Around the block.

Down the streets.

Through his neighborhood.

They had unknowingly spent all that time giving Olaf a map.

And when the time came that he actually needed it, somehow, some way, Olaf found his way back.

There is something especially beautiful about that when you’re talking about a recently adopted dog.

Because you can give a dog a house.

You can give him food.

You can give him a bed.

You can give him a family.

But home is something he has to decide for himself.

Today, Olaf sat on that porch waiting for the door to open.

I think he made his decision pretty clear.

Welcome home, Olaf. 🐾❤️

The services provided to Olaf’s family came at no cost to them.

That is possible because of the people who continue to support the work of Eye in the Sky Thermal Drone Pet Rescue.

If this story touched you and you would like to support what I do, your support is always greatly appreciated. It helps keep this work sustainable—the fuel, signs, flyers, equipment, cameras and countless other expenses that allow me to answer the next call.

Every contribution, share, comment and word of encouragement helps me continue getting to the next family, the next search, and the next someone who is loved and needs help finding their way home.

Thank you for continuing to believe in this work and for helping me Bring Lost Pets Home.

https://venmo.com/u/Eye_In_The_Sky

https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/8DSNM6CFXQSAN

Mail to:
Eye In The Sky
2207 Woodfield Road
Bloomington, IL 61704

08/24/2026

🐷❤️Love Knows No Bounds❤️🐷

The story of Marge

Logan called me sometime mid-morning.

His father Dirk’s KuneKune pig, Marge, was missing.

But calling Marge “Dirk’s pig” only tells part of the story.

Marge was a family pig.

She belonged to all of them in the way that really matters.

She was loved.

And this wasn’t a little pig.

Marge weighed somewhere around 390 pounds.

I suppose to some people, hearing that a nearly 400-pound pig was missing might bring a smile. Maybe even a little disbelief.

How does something that big simply disappear?

And maybe, to some, the urgency of finding her wouldn’t make much sense.

After all, she’s a pig.

But I had learned something about that kind of thinking not all that long ago.

Her name was Sweet Caroline.

Some of you may remember her from a story I wrote called “Structure and The Rachel — The Story of Sweet Caroline.”

Sweet Caroline was a Dexter cow I searched for in Iowa. Her owner, Scott, loved her deeply. I knew that before I ever met him. I could hear it in his voice.

That recovery took three trips.

There were long drives, uncertainty, frustration, a downed tree, two cattlemen named Jostan and Blake, and somehow, in the middle of everything, an unidentified sandwich we came to know as The Rachel.

It’s still one of my favorite stories.

But what stayed with me most wasn’t how we ultimately got Sweet Caroline into a trailer.

It was Scott.

It was seeing what that cow meant to him.

Someone looking from the outside might have seen livestock.

Scott saw Sweet Caroline.

And somewhere during those three trips, I began to understand the difference.

So when Logan called about Marge, I understood.

This wasn’t about finding a pig.

Marge was missing.

Marge had a home. She had a family. She had a sister named Daphne.

And when I say sister, I don’t mean another pig that happened to share the same barn.

I mean her sister.

There are photographs of Marge and Daphne curled up together, nose-to-nose, in their comfortable barn. In another, a chicken stands comfortably on Marge’s back while she rests, as though neither of them could imagine anything unusual about it.

Those pictures tell you more about Marge than 390 pounds ever could.

They tell you who she is.

They tell you about her life.

And they tell you something about the family that loves her.

Marge wasn’t simply an animal kept on the property.

She belonged there.

By the time I arrived, the heat of the day presented a problem.

Thermal drones work by detecting differences in temperature. When the ground, trees and vegetation have spent an entire day absorbing heat, an animal can become much harder to distinguish.

There are times when the best decision you can make with a thermal drone is not to fly it.

So I decided to wait.

I would come back after dark.

As evening settled in and the landscape began giving up the heat it had absorbed during the day, I returned and put the drone into the sky.

Now the world looked different.

Through the thermal camera, details that had been hidden during the heat of the day began revealing themselves.

There were sprayer tire tracks running through the field, and I began following those tracks with the drone.

Farther out than anyone expected, something appeared on my screen.

A heat signature.

I moved closer.

There she was.

Marge.

Alive.

I remember the relief of being able to say the words:

“She’s alive. She’s good.”

Dirk called Logan.

And before long, a father and son were headed out to bring Marge home.

Back to the family that had been worried about her.

Back to Daphne.

Back to that comfortable barn where two sisters could once again curl up nose-to-nose.

Home.

And maybe that’s where this story could end.

A thermal drone went up.

A missing pig was found.

Marge went home.

But that’s not really why this one stayed with me.

Because somewhere out there, while looking for a 390-pound KuneKune pig, I found myself thinking again about a Dexter cow named Sweet Caroline.

And about Scott.

Sweet Caroline had taught me something.

Marge reminded me.

We have a tendency to put animals into categories.

Dogs are pets.

Cats are pets.

Cows are livestock.

Pigs are livestock.

And then, without even realizing it, sometimes we begin assigning value to the love that comes with those labels.

We understand someone searching all night for their dog.

We understand someone crying over their cat.

But a cow?

A pig?

Maybe that’s where we’re wrong.

Maybe the mistake is believing that we get to decide which relationships deserve that kind of love.

Because who are we to decide what another living being is allowed to mean to someone?

Who are we to judge who—or what—another person loves?

I had seen the answer before.

To somebody else, Sweet Caroline was a cow.

To Scott, she was Sweet Caroline.

And now I was seeing it again.

To somebody else, Marge might be a 390-pound pig.

To Dirk, Logan and their family, she is Marge.

She’s the pig a chicken can comfortably stand on.

She’s the sister Daphne curls up beside.

She’s the one whose absence leaves an empty place in a comfortable barn.

And she’s the one whose family went looking for her because someone they loved hadn’t come home.

That’s really all we ever need to understand.

Maybe love knows no bounds because love doesn’t ask for our approval.

It doesn’t care whether the one we love sleeps at the foot of our bed, stands in a pasture, or curls up nose-to-nose beside her sister in a comfortable barn.

It doesn’t measure affection in pounds.

It doesn’t recognize the categories we create.

And it certainly doesn’t ask permission.

Sweet Caroline taught me that.

Marge reminded me.

Love knows no bounds.

⸻

As always, I appreciate everyone who follows these stories, shares them, encourages me, and supports the work of Eye in the Sky Thermal Drone Pet Rescue.

Your support is what helps make this work sustainable. It puts fuel in the vehicle, batteries in the air, equipment in the field, and allows me to answer the next call when it comes.

Because there will always be another call.

Another family searching.

Another Marge.

Another Sweet Caroline.

And the next something who is loved and needs help getting home.

Thank you for helping me get to them.

Reuniting lost pets with their families.

https://venmo.com/u/Eye_In_The_Sky

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