Tino Finds Puppy

Valentino saved on old dog’s life on his third official search.

Tino had his first “Walk up find” on the morning of July 22nd, 2018.  Tino’s nose saved the life of Puppy, a 150 pound, 11 year old Great Pyrenees who had been missing for 40 hours.  He was stuck in the mud, and his back legs had stopped working, probably due to the cold.  Tino followed his scent trail in a wilderness area, about a mile from his home.  Three people used ropes and straps to free him from the mud.

I received a call about Puppy on Friday, and I thought Tino would be able to help.  Because of the July heat, we had to search early in the day, before the temperatures would cause Tino to overheat and start panting, diminishing his ability to track scent.  We left home a little after 3 AM, and arrived in McCleary just before 5 AM, as it started to get light.  Low clouds and mist, 52 degrees and 93% humidity created good working conditions.

The first 90 minutes were spent simply trying to locate the place where Puppy was last seen.  This forest land had trees all about the same age, and Puppy’s owner had a hard time pinpointing the spot she last saw him.  Once I presented the scent article to Tino, he pulled me down the trail fast, indicating he had a strong scent.  Tino led us into a ditch, the only source of water around.  Puppy would have been thirsty and would have been drawn to the water by the smell.  Once down in the ditch, it would have been hard for Puppy to get out because of his weight and some lameness in his back legs.  Tino followed the scent trail down the ditch until we came to a point where Puppy’s scent seemed to loop around in circles.  Tino couldn’t find the single trail leading out of that knot.

I took Tino back to the main walking path, and presented the scent article to him again.  He took me up the hill on a loop through the woods, and then back to the same ditch, but a little farther downhill.  At several points, while trying to track the scent in the ditch, the mud sucked my shoes right off, and I had to reach down into the mud and pull my shoes out, and put them back on.  What looked like regular dirt would actually be deep mud with a dry top layer covering it.

Tino took me down the ditch and around the corner.  I caught a glimpse of white fur, and at first I thought it must be Puppy’s remains, not the whole dog.  As I came around the corner, I saw his face, alive and responsive, but two thirds of his body was submerged in the mud hole.  Tino barked at this strange creature in the mud before he figured out it was a dog, the dog we had been searching for.  Puppy’s owner was very relieved to find him there, and Puppy started to whine, as if to say, Please get me out of here.

It took another hour for us to get him out and get him home.  I gathered dead branches and arranged them across the mud so we could get to him.  I used Tino’s long leash to loop under Puppy’s body and start to get him out.  I had to reach deep into the mud to try to fish it out on the other side.  We got him closer to solid land, but realized we needed more rope and more muscle.

Puppy’s owner drove a quad out to the location, and brought ropes and straps.  The three of us kept tugging on Puppy, with a strap under his chest and a strap farther back, until we got him out finally.  At first, his back legs didn’t work at all.  We loaded him into a trailer behind the quad, but when it went over a log, Puppy bounced out.  Puppy started to gain some strength and coordination in his hind legs, and I was able to walk him out by supporting him with a strap under his body while he pushed with his legs the best he could.  He started to walk a little better, but he was breathing hard from the exertion and fatigue.  Once we walked him out to more level ground, we loaded him into the trailer again and gave him a ride the rest of the way home.  His thick fur was so caked with mud, I couldn't imagine how they would ever get him clean.

I was very proud of Tino.  Of course, I love him no matter what, but I was so happy he could have this great start to his search career.  This was his third official search.  On his first search, we couldn’t continue because the hound we were following had a skill for going under and over fences, across private property.  His second search, starting in the mountains at 4,000 feet, was also thwarted by obstacles.  That lost dog had gone down steep talus slopes through thick brush, and although Tino would have been able to follow, I could not.  Tino’s search work helped in both those cases, providing a direction of travel, and both dogs were eventually found.  In this case, in spite of very challenging terrain in places, Tino and I were able to track down the lost dog.  Tino had done such a great job in training, I never doubted that he would soon have his fist Walk Up Find.

This search, Tino’s first success, was especially meaningful because I doubt Puppy would have survived without the help of Tino.  Puppy is deaf, and he couldn’t hear his family calling for him, so he couldn’t bark to call for help if he heard them close by.  I can only imagine what Puppy must have been going through, stuck in that mud hole for hours, wondering if help would come in time.  If not for Tino, I don’t think anyone would have ever found him.  Not only did Tino perform flawlessly on his first success, but he saved a life.  Tino slept soundly on the drive home, mud still caked on his snout.

Amazingly, we received another call about Puppy, on May 12th, 2019, ten months after the first rescue. Puppy had disappeared again. He would normally stay close to the house, but he had wandered away, possibly confused in his old age. His house is in the middle of a wide open space in a sparse subdivision that use to be a farm field.  We could see a long distance in any direction, and Puppy would always be visible unless he fell in the irrigation canal and couldn’t get out.  The ditch circled around the neighborhood, almost entirely encircling it.  Puppy’s people had searched along the canal, but they hadn’t found him.

When Tino started on the scent trail, he took off to the south.  He led me to the neighbor’s shed, where I was surprised to look in and see half a dozen puppy faces looking up at me.  They were black lab puppies, and they looked like Kelsy on the day I got her.  Tino had found puppies, but he hadn’t found Puppy yet.  After the brief distraction, Tino continued on to the south and southeast, and in a short time, he found Puppy, stuck in the ditch, half submerged in water.  He’d probably been in the cold water almost 24 hours, about a quarter mile from home.  We helped him out and let him rest a while.  After he warmed up a bit, Puppy was able to walk home under his own power.  I threw a stick for Tino and played fetch with him in the field, to celebrate finding Puppy for the second time.