Bella
On October 5th, Tino and I were asked to search for Bella in Olympia. Bella, a sweet and gentle pit bull mix, was getting on in years and having medical issues. Her family thought she might not have long to live, even though she had been getting the best veterinary care. She went out for a walk on the farm one day with someone watching, but in a brief moment of distraction, she wandered in an unknown direction. As they were searching for her in the fields, she visited the barn. Bella liked all the horses. The grandkids saw her there and toweled her off because she had been in the rain. They didn’t know anyone was looking for her at the time. No one saw her after that. Pam and Joe were concerned that she had, “Gone off to be alone to pass away,” which is a common belief. They figured that her body was probably fairly close to the barn, because she couldn’t walk far, and they wanted my search dog, Tino, to locate the body. I explained that the notion of a cat or dog going off to be alone to die is somewhat if a misinterpretation of the circumstances, and it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Dogs and cats will hide when they are in pain or feeling ill, and if they are not found in time, they may die in that hiding place. That does not mean, how ever, that going off to die was their intention. My search dogs and I have found old and ill cats and dogs in their hiding places, and gotten help for them in time, and they went on to live more good days. If found in time, a hidden pet can recover. It is the assumption that a cat or dog has gone off to die that can cause people to not look thoroughly, and not find their pet, increasing the chance they could die in that hiding place. I told them we could come and search, and that we had a good chance of finding her alive. Also, if Bella had passed, Tino would have a reasonable chance of finding the hidden body. He had found remains before.
When we arrived at the barn, and Tino got out of the car, he barked with excitement, they way he always does at the beginning of a search. Since he is 120 pounds, some people can be a little alarmed at his excited barking, but Pam and Joe, being dog lovers, recognized that Tino’s bark was just showing anticipation, with no intention of intimidation or aggression. Tino went around and met everyone, and then I put his harness on to get him ready to search. We used Bella’s bed as a scent item, and Tino started off away from the main house, pulling me away from the barn, towards a strip of forest between horse pastures. Tino was very interested in an opening, kind of a little cave, in a pile of debris. It appeared dished out, as if an animal Bella’s size had taken shelter there at one point. After that, Tino led me to the edge of the woods where I could see the vegetation pushed down by an animal about the height and width of Bella. We followed the scent trail through the woods to the next horse pasture, where we ran into a very large problem. A couple of beautiful horses were in the pasture, and Tino barked at them in excitement, since he doesn’t often see horses up close. One of the horses, a black and white paint, stomped at the ground and seemed to growl at Tino. Joe assured me that horses do not growl. I don’t have much experience with horses, but it didn’t seem like an inviting sound. I didn’t want to go into the pasture without permission, and also I didn’t want Tino to upset the horses to the point that he might get kicked.
As we were trying to figure out how to get permission to continue on the scent trail through the pasture, we received a report that Bella had been seen on one of the neighboring properties, earlier in the day, before she was seen at the barn on the day she disappeared. This told us that Bella was traveling much farther than expected for an older dog who was feeling poorly, farther than she had been known to wander in the past. Perhaps she was experiencing confusion and wandered the wrong way. We eventually did get permission to continue through the pasture, and after crossing the pasture, the scent trail looped back toward the barn. Tino followed the scent in a series of loops through many horse pastures. It appeared that Bella had not passed away near the barn, which was good, but her unexpected mobility and her looping, intersecting scent trail made it hard for us to determine which of the many scent trails was the most recent one she took.
After three hours of this looping search, Tino led me out to the road, a place that Bella was never known to go. If she had gone there, it was out of character for her. Maybe her mind had become clouded and she was disoriented. Along the edge of the road, Tino found diarrhea. While this might not seem like a significant find--we were hoping to find Bella, after all--to me it was potentially an important clue that could tell us what might have happened to Bella. Bella was known to be having issues, and the odds of some other dog having diarrhea on the edge of Bella’s property would be slim, though not impossible. The scent trail led from the edge of the road into the horse pasture, but it didn’t lead to anywhere else up or down or across the road. The scenario I hypothesized was that Bella came to the edge of the road, confused and not feeling at all well, and she rested there until someone drove down the road and picked her up. Since she didn’t have a collar, they wouldn’t automatically know where she lived. Joe was understandably skeptical that someone would find Bella and just drive off with her rather than come and knock on their door.
I explained why some people would pick up a dog they found in that situation. I know because I see it happening often in the Lost Pet groups I monitor on Facebook. It is common for many people, if they find a dog that has health issues or appears out of sorts, to assume a dog was abandoned, even though they have no proof that that is the case. This generates feelings of sympathy for the dog, and the person who picks up such a dog will view herself as a rescuer. I have seen many people comment on Facebook posts about found dogs that, “The owners don’t deserve her because they didn’t take care of her.” I would agree that someone who would abandon an old and sick dog on a remote rural road might not deserve to have that dog, but I don’t agree that the assumption of abandonment is reasonable or valid. Statistically, most dogs thought to have been abandoned were really just lost, and their caring owners were actively searching for them. If you just found a sad dog on the side of the road, you would have no way of knowing that the dog was abandoned. Most people aren’t aware of the statistics, though. How could they know unless they spent an inordinate amount of time studying lost pet cases, as I have. When they see a sad dog looking lost or hurt, they are filled with empathy and emotion. They view themselves as the heroic saviors of the dog. They don’t go looking for an owner because they assume, usually incorrectly, that no one is looking for the dog.
When people ask Tino and I to come out and search for their dog, of course they want us to find their dog. To find a clue to a possible scenario, without certainty, can be very disappointing. The scent trail did not lead any farther, though. Either Bella backtracked toward the house and then left again in another direction, or she was picked up by someone who thought she was abandoned. I did not try to persuade Pam and Joe that my proposed scenario of Bella being picked up was the only possible interpretation of the scent trail we followed. I did feel that, after the search showed she was covering a larger area than they previously thought she could cover in her condition, and because a neighbor confirmed that Bella had wandered off the property at one point, it was not unreasonable to assume that it was possible Bella had made it to the road and had been picked up. They hadn’t considered that possibility before, and they hadn’t pursued steps to locate her based on that scenario. Now that I thought being picked up was more likely than many of the other possibilities, Joe and Pam said they would work on putting up posters and fliers, posting on social media, and talking to the neighbors.
They put out fliers in the neighborhood that evening, and the next morning, Bella came to their door, barking to be let in. Pam and Joe were very relieved to have her home, and happy that Bella would be able to spend her remaining days with her family. She was dry, except for her feet, and clean. She was not dehydrated. Although no one could prove it, it appeared she had been with someone for two days, not sitting in the woods in the rain. A reasonable hypothesis would be that someone had thought she was abandoned and took her home, then saw the fliers, realized their mistake, and dropped her off at her home in order to avoid the embarrassment of having kept a beloved pet away from a caring family. I can’t be 100% certain that that scenario is what actually happened, but it is more likely than the other possible explanations, based on her showing up the morning after the fliers went out. If that is what actually happened, then Tino’s search work and my knowledge of the behavior of lost dogs and dog “rescuers” were critical in getting Bella back home.
When Tino searches for a lost dog, he finds the dog or their remains about 20% of the time. When we don’t pinpoint the exact current location of the lost dog, we can often provide advice for the continued search based on what we find, and what we don’t find. In the case of Bella, we didn’t find her body. Had she gone off to die in the woods, as had been theorized, then it would have been highly likely that Tino could have found her. That her scent trail looped around through a much larger territory, and seemed to end at the side of the road, opened up many other possibilités of what could have happened to Bella. Acting on those other possibilities led to Bella being found.
Bella’s story has important lessons for anyone missing a dog, or finding a dog.
1--Don’t get locked into one theory of what happened to your missing dog. This can cause you to not pursue other ways of finding her, and reduce your chances. You have the best chance of finding your dog when you consider the many possible scenarios of how and why she went missing, and take action on at least the five most likely eventualities.
2--Even if a search dog does not pinpoint your lost dog, the search can provide important information to guide further efforts. Knowing where your dog isn’t located can help you shift your focus to other possibilities.
3--You shouldn’t assume an old and/or ill pet has gone off to die because there is no evidence to suggest a dog or cat would actually have that intention. If you don’t do a thorough search, then she might miss out on an opportunity for more days with her family.
4--Although it can be difficult to continue the search for a lost pet when your mind is busy imagining the worst case scenarios, those who persist in the search are often rewarded.
5--If you find a dog that looks lost and ill or injured, don’t jump to the conclusion she was dumped or unwanted. Statistically, it is much more likely that she has a loving family searching for her, as Bella’s family was.
When we finished the search, I had wet feet and muddy pants, while Tino looked perfectly clean and dry, even though we had slogged through the same muddy, swampy fields and woods. As we drove home after the search, I was very proud of Tino, working a difficult, tangled trail with obstacles such as horses, mud, and pastures of pungent smells churned together. Even though he didn’t locate Bella, he still did a great job. Working together, we accomplished what neither could do alone. We worked as a team, as dogs and humans have done for thousands of years, turning our hunting skills to the challenge of tracking lost dogs. Tino and I share a deep bond, and because of my love for Tino, I certainly understand how people like Pam and Joe feel about dogs like Bella. They want to do everything they can to find the missing member of their family.
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