Pet Search
& Rescue
The first and only full-time drone search operation in the Mid-Ohio Valley. Our thermal drone flies in rain, snow, and winds up to 40 mph, sharpest in the cold of winter when a lost pet's body heat stands out brightest. Dispatched 24 hours a day.
Welcome. We're MOV Drone Workz.
We are a Marietta-based drone operation serving the Mid-Ohio Valley. Other operators in the area flew thermal for game recovery. We were the first to fly it for lost pets, and the first to show up for families around the clock.
What began as a media and mapping company grew into something we never set out to build: a search service for people on the worst day of their year. We are FAA Part 107 certified, fire-ground experienced, and ready for the conditions most operators will not touch.
But the reason any of this exists comes down to a handful of searches we will never forget.
Searches we won't forget.
Every call is different. A shepherd frozen at the edge of a four-lane highway. A tortoise gone quiet in a cow pasture. A fourteen-year-old Lab we reached just in time to say goodbye. Different animals, different endings, the same thermal camera finding what no one on the ground could. These are the ones that stay with us.
Asher
Asher was the first find of the day, the one that showed us what this could be. The thermal camera caught his heat in the brush, we guided his family straight to him, and he was home inside of minutes. The adrenaline was still running hot when the next call came in.
Nova
A full day missing, and the tips led us to the worst place a frightened one-year-old German Shepherd could be: the edge of a busy four-lane highway. The drone found Nova low in the brush, and we walked her owner through the thicket one careful step at a time. What could have ended in tragedy ended in an embrace.
Maximus
Minutes after we brought a Sheepadoodle home, the call came for Maximus, a gentle fourteen-year-old Lab mix, partially blind and diabetic, missing from his Vincent home. His family had searched until they had nothing left. We were fifteen minutes away. In fifteen minutes of flight, the drone found what no one could see from the ground: Max, seventy-five yards from his own door, trapped deep in a hidden ravine. My copilot Jeremy Patterson, a volunteer firefighter, went down the slick banks with the family and carried Max out in his arms. The reunion we hoped for became a tender goodbye, his final moments wrapped in the people who loved him. Maximus is the reason we never stop.
Rico
Our first turtle search, and still one of our favorites. Rico, an eight-year-old African Sulcata tortoise, had slipped his Little Hocking yard and wandered nearly a thousand feet into a neighboring cow pasture. We launched just after sunset for the sharpest thermal contrast, and within ten minutes there he was: a perfect round hotspot glowing on the screen like a manhole cover. We walked his owners straight to him.
Dogs and a tortoise. Cattle, goats, and horses. An African grey parrot. An emu, once.
If it has a heat signature, we will see it.