Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

On July 4th, Paul and Linda Foster of Tryon headed into downtown Columbus for the celebration. Their daughter Sarah was on vacation, so they were caring for her 10-month-old Basset hound, Adelaide, and took her along. During the festivities Adelaide managed to get out of her harness and took off running.

“We tried to catch her, and by then, the fireworks had started, and I think that scared her too,” says Paul. “We were just terrified. We went running after her, calling for her. My wife said it was a worst-case scenario because it was on our watch. It would be bad enough if it were our dog, but it was our daughter’s dog.”

The Fosters spent the next two days looking for Adelaide, getting help from local first responders and random citizens. On July 6, Sarah returned from her vacation and called a service she found online called “Project Reunite.” It’s run by Columbus residents Tim and Gwen Ryan, who use a drone to spot lost pets.  Early in the morning on July 7, Tim flew the drone over an area close to where the Ryans had last seen Adelaide and spotted her.

“The dog was still nervous and running around, running away from people,” says Tim. “The minute I saw her on camera, my heart just started racing. I was pretty excited at that point that we’d be able to catch her. The feeling’s incredible when we finally see a dog on camera.”

“We ran over there and saw her and we were kind of relieved to see she looked perfectly healthy even though she wouldn’t come to us,” says Paul. 

The Fosters camped out near the spot where Tim spotted Adelaide until she eventually came out of the woods, and they were able to coax her to them. The Fosters were grateful for the help from the Ryans and Project Reunite.

“I think they’re terrific. They were easy to get in touch with, great to work with and they weren’t really expensive,” says Paul.

The Ryans moved to Columbus from the Southern Pines area in 2023. Tim works for an organization in Biscoe called “Four Hooves,” which specializes in large animal search and rescue. In 2022, it started looking at drone technology to help in its searches. Tim took an interest in drone technology, and he and Gwen both took training classes and got their FAA licenses to fly drones. After moving to Columbus, they started a drone photography and videography business called “Love2Fly.”

“It sort of opened up a creative side that I didn’t think I had,” says Tim.

The Ryans started getting calls from people who needed help finding lost horses, cows and dogs and they saw lots of posts on social media about lost pets. They saw a need and decided to invest in a thermal imaging drone that can detect an animal’s heat signature to help them find them.

“Project Reunite” was born. 

The Ryans say they were also inspired by their own dog, Tully, a two-and-a-half-year-old chocolate lab/pit bull mix. 

“If we lost Tully, we would do anything we needed to do. He was a big reason behind it,” says Tim. 

The Ryans say people should call Project Reunite as soon as their pet is lost because the first hours and days are critical. The earlier the Ryans can get up in the air to search, the higher the odds they can pinpoint a pet’s location. They understand a pet owner’s desire to do their own searching first but say those search efforts are best done in parallel with Project Reunite’s efforts to locate a pet. 

A call to Project Reunite begins with questions about how, when, and where the pet got lost and was last seen, its age and health, whether it’s neutered or spayed, and its general personality.

“Those kinds of questions are important to us because it’s going to indicate to us what that animal is going to act like, what kind of behavior that animal is going to have when we’re out there searching,” says Tim.

Project Reunite works closely with the owner during the search process.

“If I do get a sighting, I can drop a GPS pin right where that animal is if the animal is bedded down somewhere and then send those GPS coordinates directly to someone’s phone and they can go directly to that spot where that animal is,” says Tim. 

For all their advantages drones do have drawbacks. They cannot see through structures, fly in restricted airspace such as near airports, military bases and other federal and state-owned property or fly in bad weather. Even if Project Unite can fly, it cannot guarantee finding a lost pet.

“People appreciate what we do whether we find the animal or not in most cases because it does give them that piece of mind that they’ve done everything they can,” says Tim.

Project Reunite charges a base rate of $100 for a two-hour search and a dollar per mile for travel, and generally works within a 50-mile radius of Columbus but will consider longer trips on a case-by-case basis. It’s one more service in Love2Fly’s drone business, with drone photography and videography being its primary work serving a wide range of clients. The Ryans fleet of drones is up to four, with three of them being named after some of their favorite country musicians and the fourth, the thermal imaging drone, being named for Gwen’s dog Maggie who had to be put to sleep last year. 

While the Ryans’ drone business helps pay their bills, Project Reunite offers them other rewards.

“Every single person that we’ve dealt with has been greatly appreciative of what we’re doing for them. That’s what’s rewarding about it,” says Tim.

“I love the people that we meet. They love their animals and just like us they’d do anything for them, so I’m glad we do what we do,” says Gwen.