Bella Again!

Tino found her again, the second time in a couple of months.

Tino did some really amazing work last night. He found a missing dog when I hadn’t even asked him to search. He found Bella in DuPont, the same dog that he had found last month when she had gone missing.  We went to Dupont to drop off a trap, and while we were waiting to meet a friend, I took Tino out to just walk around and to visually scan an area where I thought it would be likely for a lost dog to go.  Without any cues from me, he latched onto the scent of Bella and tracked to her hiding place in the bushes by the train tracks.

Tino had previously found Bella on September 10, in the woods by the golf course, after she had been missing for a week. During the September escape, Bella had been startled by a loud truck and she jerked the leash out of her owner’s hand.  During that search, Tino tracked her through the woods for about a mile, and we stopped so that we wouldn’t push her farther away. We set a trap in the area where she was hiding. She came to her owner later that day.

This most recent escape was fairly similar. Bella had been startled by a sudden loud noise, and bolted in panic, knocking her owner down. They contacted me right away about a search, but I was uncertain about the advisability of using a search dog, when they probably ought to post on social media first to see if anybody had seen her. Maybe a search dog wasn’t even necessary. I told them that if I were in their position, I might hold off on the search dog for a day.

D. D. Ponder has years of experience trapping lost dogs. We often work together, and we had both helped with the September escape of Bella. Yesterday, D.D. caught a dog in one of her traps. This little dog was a dog that Tino had searched for in Issaquah, but we hadn’t been able to catch up to her because of private property issues. This tiny dog, Sailor, had been running for 19 days in a wilderness area next to a residential neighborhood. Many people we spoke to in the neighborhood told us not to bother looking for Sailor because she had certainly been eaten by coyotes. Of course, I knew from my years of experience that it was statistically unlikely that a predator had taken Sailor. There had been a recent sighting, so I went to the area to look for Sailor. As we were driving that way, I got a message from D.D. that Sailor had gone into the trap, which she had seen on her wildlife camera. Since we were already headed that way, I went to the trap and secured Sailor and made sure she was safe. Sailor‘s family was very happy to have her back.

Afterward, we decided to drive south to meet up with D.D. to give her trap back. DuPont seemed like a convenient place to meet, and also we might get lucky and see Bella.

Tino and I got there a bit early, so I decided to take Tino for a walk while waiting for D.D. There was a woodsy area adjacent to the apartments where Bella had gone missing. It seemed like a good place for a dog to go if she was nervous and trying to avoid people. I just had Tino on a regular leash, attached to his collar, and he wasn’t wearing his search vest.  It was after sunset, so it would be a little difficult to see a black dog in the forest, but I thought we could get lucky. Mostly I just wanted to take Tino for a walk in the nice woods.

After we had passed through the woods, to the parking lot on the other side, Tino smelled the ground, and then he looked up at me as if to tell me he had caught the scent of something.  I gave him a slight nod, and he started tracking whatever it was.  I was thinking it might be a deer or a coyote.  He took me into the woods in a different place, east of where we had come in.  As Tino tracked through the woods, I had to try to mind my step because it was fairly dark in the woods.  He took me out on the east side, across a street, and over towards the train tracks. At the base of a tree, Tino picked up a stronger scent and started pulling harder.  After about twenty more feet, Tino sniffed up an incline, and a big dog barked at us!  It was fairly dark, and I couldn’t see who it was.  I caught a glimpse, and I thought it could be Bella.  At first, I was worried that she was on the far side of the chain link fence, in the right of way of the railroads.  As I moved around, I could see that she was on our side of the fence and it looked like Bella!  I was very impressed with Tino for staying silent while Bella barked at us, as he is usually pretty vocal.

I immediately texted D.D., and Bella’s owner.  They both got to us within about five minutes.  I pointed out where Bella was hiding in the scotch broom, and then I moved Tino away to give Bella space.  Within a couple of minutes, they got Bella to come to them and she was in the car!

I was so impressed with Tino, who found this dog all on his own.  I didn’t even ask him to.  He didn’t sniff a scent item first.  I wonder if he recognized the scent of Bella from when he had found her a month earlier.  The scent trail was probably 24 hours old, and many other dogs must have walked through the area within that time frame.  We saw at least a dozen dogs being walked in the area in the hour that we were there.  Tino came upon the scent of Bella, apparently remembered the scent from a previous search, and tracked right to her location, with no prompting from me.

It’s no secret that I think Valentino is magnificent.  I would think so even if all he ever did was lie on the couch all day.  As a search dog, he has a great record, finding at least 60 dogs in the 6 years he has been working.  This is also the second dog that he has found twice.  He found Puppy in McCleary on his third official search, and then found Puppy again 9 months later when he had disappeared again.  I know that Tino loves his job because he is always excited to go to work.  That he took it upon himself to just go and find Bella without any guidance from me, it seems to me that he really understands what this work is about and the importance of his rare skills.  I absolutely love my job because I get to work in partnership with Tino.  Not every search has a happy ending, but days like yesterday, I will always remember those.