Raven’s First Walk-up Find

She found Eli in the Duwamish Greenbelt

Raven has been excelling at her search training. I have had her for a little over a year, and she has been training for almost a year. My plan was to have her ready for actual searches about six months from now. If needed, she could work as my main scent trailing dog starting tomorrow, but Tino currently has that job, so I haven’t been in a hurry to complete Raven’s training.

Today, we just went for a walk in the woods to see if we might catch a glimpse of Eli the Airedale who had been missing for three weeks near South Seattle College. My goal was to go deeper into the trail system and just look around. Most important was my determination to not make Eli uncomfortable or displace him from a safe place. If he would come to us, that would be great, but mostly we just wanted to learn more about where he was hanging out. I brought Raven instead of Tino because she is much smaller, and female, and less intimidating than Tino.

After we had been walking the trails about an hour, Raven started sniffing the trail as if she was on the scent of an animal, probably a dog or coyote. I had a long leash, so I wrapped it around her body to make it into a harness so she could pull me along the scent as if she had her search vest on. She tracked this scent of an unknown animal for fifteen or twenty minutes. We came to many forks in the trail and little side trails, and Raven guided us with her nose. Then we came to some mud that had captured footprints, and the prints seemed to be a possible match for Eli. We kept going and Raven’s interest intensified. Then we came around the corner of the trail and there was Eli! Raven had tracked right up to him.

Then Raven barked, which was not ideal. Eli wasn’t too bothered by it, and he seemed interested in Raven in spite of her bad manners. He stood sideways, ready to run if necessary, but watching Raven. I got some string cheese out of my pocket and started feeding it to Raven, a little at a time, to try to stop her from barking. Eli was very interested in the food Raven was getting, and he came closer. Then I got out the big guns, the Vienna sausage. Eli was very interested in that. Within minutes, I had him eating out of my hand.

I sat on the ground on the side of the trail and fed Vienna sausage to Eli and Raven. They were competing for bites of sausage, which was drawing Eli close to me, to try to get in and get the sausage before Raven could. I made a slip lead out of my long leash by inverting the handle and pulling the leash through it. I almost got it over Eli’s head on several attempts, but he wasn’t quite comfortable enough. Then I ran out of sausage.

I posted to the UBS volunteer group, asking for help, and fortunately Kari was nearby. Kari has saved me many times, helping me catch many dogs that would have been difficult to catch on my own. She said she would start driving my way and she would be there in about fifteen minutes.

To keep Eli around, after I had run out of sausage, I played fetch with Raven. This entertained Eli, I think. At one point, he started to wander away, and I called to him, “Eli, come back.” He turned right around and came back to us. When Kari was close, I started walking towards her location blip on my phone screen, and Eli followed us. When Raven saw Kari, of course she ran to her, since Kari is one of her favorite people. Seeing that Raven approved of Kari helped Eli be accepting of her, too. Also, Kari is skilled at Calming Signals, so she knows how to help dogs feel comfortable around her.

We sat beside the trail, in the leaves. Kari had brought two more cans of Vienna sausage, which Raven and Eli were happy about. I had to hold Raven back so Kari could give some sausage to Eli. Within about five minutes, Kari was able to get a slip lead on Eli. He was officially caught.

I took the Martingale collar off of Raven and put it on Eli, for safety. Then we tried to start walking with him, with two leashes for security. He did not want to walk on a leash, and he started biting at the leash, trying to chew through it. Kari had to carry him, since he refused to walk with us on the leashes. (I later learned that Eli doesn’t like to walk on a leash for anyone.) I would have carried Eli, but he was more comfortable with Kari. It is common for dogs, especially lost dogs, to feel more comfortable with women. Kari had to haul Eli all the way up the hill to the parking lot about 200 feet away. We took our time, and Kari put him down to rest after short intervals of carrying. We slowly made our way to the top.

Once we got to the top, we called someone who had been helping with the search, and asked her to bring a crate for transport, for Eli’s safety. I lifted him up and put him in the crate in the back of their vehicle, and closed the door of the crate. I could finally relax and stop worrying about him escaping, at least for the moment. Eli seemed happy to relax in a safe place, and he allowed me to pet him through the bars of the crate.

This wasn’t an official search. Eli’s owner didn’t even know we were going there to look around. Even though Raven hasn’t really started her search career, I think I will always remember this as her first real walk-up find. She clearly used her nose and it was obvious she was tracking something, even though I didn’t know at the time if it was Eli. She did a great job and I praised her thoroughly. Then she was a magnet dog, of sorts. Although I wish she wouldn’t have barked, I think Eli could tell she was saying, “Hey,” and that she didn’t intend any harm. Playing fetch with Raven helped Eli relax while we waited for Kari to arrive with more Vienna sausage.

As I drove home with Raven, I was so proud of her. I feel confident that she will be a great search dog, and she will be my working partner for ten years. I am going to write a lot of stories about Raven’s greatness. Of course, I would love her even if she decided she would rather not be a search dog, but I think we are destined to have that special bond that a search dog and her handler share.

I have included more pictures and videos here than really would be necessary to tell this story. I wanted to preserve this moment because I’m sure I will always look back on it and enjoy this memory of Raven’s first find, saving Eli’s life.