Raphael’s First Official Success

He found critical evidence.

Raphael’s First Official Success

On Sunday, July 16th, 2023, Raphael had his first “walk up find” of evidence in the case of a missing cat.  It wasn’t particularly dramatic, or a happy ending, but he did a great job.  We were searching for a missing cat, and the owners had found a significant amount of fur.  Looking at pictures of the fur, I couldn’t necessarily tell if it indicated a predator attack or something else.  Raph and I went there to search for the missing cat, and also to look for evidence that would corroborate or refute the theory of a predator attack.  Raphael sniffed at the fur they had already found in the woods.  From that point, he tracked about 80 feet up the hill, and found more evidence that they hadn’t known about.  It appeared to be a probable match for the fur of the missing cat.  Also, the way the fur was wadded up, and because of the other matter included with it, it appeared this fur had passed through a coyote.  Through our 15 years of searching for lost cats, we have learned that it is a habit of coyotes to take prey in a certain location, and then come back some time later and defecate near that location, leaving scat containing some of the remains of the prey they took.  It appears to be a bookmark of sorts: this area is a good place to find this kind of food.

Although finding this evidence appeared to be a bad sign for the missing cat, it was great work by Raphael.  I praised him repeatedly.  I offered him a treat, although he is not very treat motivated.  He loves to play, and finding cats is one of his favorite games.  We continued searching, for several reasons.  The evidence was not conclusive: I couldn’t say without a doubt that the fur belonged to the missing cat.  It appeared to be a match, but I didn’t have the means to do a DNA match or a microscopic exam.  The evidence certainly fit a pattern, being close to the larger amount of fur that definitely had belonged to the lost cat and seemed to be evidence of an attack. If this cat was never found, a coyote attack would be a reasonable explanation based on the evidence.  On rare occaisions, maybe 3% of my cases, I have been wrong when I thought that evidence found by a search dog indicated a pet had been taken by a predator.  In case I might be wrong in this case, we kept searching, in hopes of finding more evidence, or possibly finding the cat alive and well, against all odds.  Other than finding the cat or evidence, we were also searching for more signs of where the coyotes were going and what they were eating.

We searched for a couple of hours, and we did not find the cat, or more evidence of predation.  One remarkable clue Raphael found was a tiny bit of fur on a twig.  In acres and acres of forest, Raphael pointed out to me a little bit of fur. I was able to pick it up and take a picture of it with my phone.  I’m fairly certain this fur was from the missing cat, but probably from before he went missing, when he was just out exploring.  My eye has become trained to find this sort of evidence, and I often see tiny bits of fur that other people miss.  I did not see this, and would not have, without Raphael’s excellent nose.  Raphael has been training for about a year and a half, and this was the fourth actual case he has worked.  Although he has been ready to work for about a year, Mu is still going strong, and he gets most of the cases.  Mu was injured on this day, and it created an opportunity for Raphi to work.  I really enjoy working with him.  Someday, he will be my main dog.

Raphael’s success is all the more remarkable because of his history.  He beat the odds by just surviving.  On August 20th, 2021, people alerted Useless Bay Sanctuary to four puppies that appeared to have been dumped in the forest near Rattlesnake Mountain.  The dogs were hanging around a forest service gate, and a large bag of dog food had been dumped by someone, either the original owner, or someone trying to help the dogs.  The puppies were chasing after cyclists and nipping at them, and they wouldn’t let anyone get too close to them.  When I went there and saw them, of course, I fell in love with them.  I gave them some treats, hot dogs, and a bowl of water.  They were very thirsty, and all four puppies stuck their snouts in the water bowl at the same time.  One of them, I think it was Donatello, bluff charged at me from behind, and nipped at my pant leg.  I didn’t respond.  I went and sat down in the middle of the pack of dogs and let them mill around me as I tossed treats to them.  Raphael stayed farthest away from me at first.  I named them after the four Ninja Turtles, partly because they seemed like teenagers.  I named them from lightest, Donatello, to darkest, Raphael, so that I could begin to tell them apart and learn the personality of each.  Donatello was the leader of the pack, and Raphael played the role of protector.  After they got to know me, after a few hours, Raphael decided I was a good person, and he stayed close to me.  Eventually, he leaned up against me, and then flopped across my legs.  I was one of their pack.  When strangers would approach, Raphael would drape himself across me and bark at the intruder, protecting me from danger.

I wished I could take all of them home, but my five dogs at home were more than enough.  Raphael went to a foster, and then to another foster, and that foster decided to adopt him after not very much time living with him.  Brenda loves Raphael, and he goes everywhere with her.  At work, Raphael is the highlight of everyone’s day as he goes from office to office to check in with his friends.  Brenda generously agreed to let me train him to become a cat detection dog, and she will allow me to borrow him for searches, once Mu retires.  I have enjoyed watching Raphael grow up, from being a shy dog in the beginning, to being the party dog whenever he goes to the off-leash park.  He is the dog that gets all of the other dogs playing.  Mu has been on over 1200 searches.  I don’t want Mu to retire, but I have told him that he can retire whenever he thinks it’s time.  I hope to have a long partnership with Raphael, and I hope we go on thousands of searches together.  He is just a wonderful person, and I am lucky to know him.  I’m very glad he accepted me into his pack.

After the search, I wanted to reward Raphi for his excellent work, and I wanted to celebrate our first success together.  I stopped at a gas station and got him a hotdog, and myself a Häagen-Dazs dark chocolate ice cream bar.  Raphael wasn’t quite sure what he thought of the hot dog at first, but then he decided he did like it, although he left the bun behind.  What we really needed was to play.  Raph loves to play with Tino.  They have the best time together.  We went home and got Tino, and then we went to the beach.  I somehow managed to not die as I took the excited dogs down the trail to the beach.  Once we got there, the two dogs ran along the sand bar and through the shallow waves for an hour, fetching sticks and chasing each other.  It was the best reward for Raph.  Raphael is very photogenic, too, so I captured many pictures of him playing.  I love Raphael so much, and I am really looking forward to a long career with him, finding cats and playing afterward.  I know he will save the lives of many cats.