Living: Hercule Pawret

He might be called a private paw.

His professional sobriquet is Sherlock Bones, and he operates what he believes to be the world's first dogtective agency. Actually, John Keane, 32, a former insurance salesman, will try to track down any lost pet in the San Francisco Bay Area—and to date has been retained to find an errant parakeet and a strayed horse, as well as hundreds of Fidos and felines. The strapping ex-Marine is aided by Paco, an old English sheep dog who wears a deerstalker hat and slurps champagne, and by a legion of kindly kids whom he calls, naturally the Baker Street Irregulars.

But nothing is elementary about these pursuits. A lost dog may travel miles before it is picked up—or dog-naped. If it winds up in an animal shelter and is not claimed within five days it will probably be destroyed. For a $30 fee Keane advises the client on how to find his pet and supplies a form poster that can be individualized with a description of the loved one (Keane recommends a minimum $50 reward). For $100 plus expenses he will devote himself exclusively to finding one pet, and with the Irregulars will scour a neighborhood as thoroughly as Mr. Holmes on the trail of Professor Moriarty.

Unlike his near namesake of the old-time radio serial, Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons, the self-styled "Tracer of Missing Pets" is not infallible. He is hampered by police indifference, even when he can identify a petnaper. (On occasion, Keane says, he has come close to having his head blown off by professional criminals.) And, he notes "finding a lost bird in Oakland is like finding one particular flea on a Saint Bernard." Nonetheless, his ten-month-old business is prospering, and he has been approached to lend his nom de chien to a movie about Sherlock Bones. He is also working on a book that will not be called Sam Spayed.