Tino Finds Copper

A good day.

Tino started his day playing with Sky. I was able to get a couple of pictures that I really like.

Tino was asked to search for Copper in Sammamish.  We had several requests ahead of Copper, so we couldn’t get there right away when the request first came in two days earlier.  Copper is 50 pounds, reddish brown, probably a pit bull mix.  She had run off before and always came back.  This time she escaped with a harness and dragging a leash. Her owner was concerned about her being stuck somewhere. When we were finally able to search for Copper, it turned out there was a sighting just an hour earlier.  They said the dog was dragging a leash, so it seemed very likely to be her.  I told Copper’s owner that they would probably find her, and maybe they didn’t need a search dog.  She wanted us to come out anyway.

When we started at the point of the sighting, it had been 48 hours since the escape, and about two hours since the sighting.  Tino picked up the scent, and he followed it into a trail east of Beaver Lake.  The scent went down into many homes along the east side of Beaver Lake, and we had to stop and try to get permission each time.  No one was home at at least six of the properties we tried to search, so we had to pick up the scent trail on the other side.  This slowed us down a lot.

It was a cool day, about 41 degrees, and Tino found many ponds to cool off in.  He was pulling hard for most of the scent trail, and it was difficult for me to stay on my feet on the steep downward slopes.  After we had followed the scent in a big loop for about an hour, the owner received a notification that the AirTag Copper was wearing registered at an address on the west side of the lake. The notification didn’t come to her right away, and the ping had registered about 90 minutes earlier.  It really only would have taken Copper about ten minutes to get there, so the sighting seemed probable.

Tino and I got in the car and drove around to the address where the AirTag registered.  We talked to the homeowner, and she had not seen Copper.  I started Tino on the scent trail, and he took me north, towards the woods north of the neighborhood.  We went through a construction site where a home had been torn down and they were going to put in many new homes, it seemed.  When Tino took me into the woods beyond the construction site, I heard a bark.  We stopped.  I couldn’t figure out where the bark came from.  I followed where Tino was looking, and I could see Copper!  Her coloring made her nearly invisible, camouflaged in the shady woods.  I couldn’t tell if she was stuck, or just resting.  I didn’t want to approach her because I didn’t want her to run.  I texted the owner and told her our location, and she started driving toward us. (The picture below is zoomed in. To the naked eye, she was very small and hard to see against that background.)

As we were waiting, I sat on the ground, to try to help Copper stay calm.  I had Tino sit beside me.  Copper was about 100 feet away in the woods.  I told Tino what a good dog he was for tracking Copper into the woods, and I fed him string cheese for his reward.  Copper seemed very interested in Tino getting treats.  When Copper’s owner arrived, I pointed out Copper’s location, and the owner couldn’t see her.  I could only ever locate Copper visually by recalling which tree she was beside, and following it down to the ground.  The owner finally was able to see her.  I told her I would take Tino away, so as not to distract, as the owner went closer.  I told the owner to just talk in a normal tone of voice and move slowly towards Copper, watching her body language to see if she was getting ready to bolt.  As the owner got closer, she could see that Copper’s leash was caught.  As she approached Copper, still talking gently, Copper began to whine and wag her tail.  She finally could see this was her owner.  She was very happy when her owner finally got to her and unhooked her leash.  Copper came with her back to the car, safe.

Although I think the owner would have found Copper eventually, it’s probably a good thing she opted to use Tino.  Where Copper was stuck, it was at least 150 feet from any house, and there was no walking trail through the woods.  It might have been a long time before her AirTag came within reach of an iPhone again.  In a situation like this, it wouldn’t be uncommon for a dog to just chew through her leash and get herself unstuck.  Also, she could have backed away and pulled her harness off.  If she had done either of those, she probably would have either returned home, been seen by someone, or registered her AirTag on someone’s iPhone.  However, there have been cases where a dog has been stuck and not freed herself even if she could have, for days.  I think Copper probably would have been found safe and sound even without the help of Tino, but the owner appreciated finding Copper sooner rather than later, and she was glad Tino found Copper.

To celebrate Tino’s second successful search in a week, we went back to the east side of Beaver Lake and Tino played fetch in the lake.  He had a very good day.