Tino finds Scout

Twice!

Scout is 9 years old. Recently, he had a hematoma in his ear, which can happen with dogs with floppy ears. He was wearing a blue hoodlike bandage on his head to keep him from shaking his ears while they were healing. Some construction workers made a loud noise at his home, and he ran off in panic through an open gate. He had been missing a couple of days when his owners called Three Retrievers. They thought they knew where he was, roughly, hiding in a patch of woods near Jenkins Creek in Covington. I suggested that, if they had the area narrowed down, maybe they didn’t need a search dog. They wanted us to come out and try, just so they could know they were doing everything they could to find him.

When Tino and I got there, on Saturday, October 28th, I consulted with Scout’s family. Scout’s dog friend, Josie, was on her way to the area, and they would try to use her to lure him out of the brush. They wanted Tino to locate Scout. I was hesitant to use Tino to find the lost dog because I didn’t want to spook Scout out of a safe hiding place. It was a calculated risk, but I decided to give it a try, knowing that I would stop Tino before we got too close to Scout, to avoid flushing him out of hiding. It turned out that it was a good thing we searched because Scout was not in the patch of woods where they thought he was.

I presented the scent item, a blanket, to Tino in the car. I like to give him the scent item before we get out of the car because Tino starts barking and going crazy once the search starts. When he smells the scent item in the car, he is calmer, and takes more time to analyze the scent and get the whole picture. Once I brought him out on a leash, he tracked right into the woods along a primitive trail, pushing through the blackberries and nettles. It was a cool day, and he had a fresh scent. He tracked through the woods, and then northeast along Wax Road. He came to a small farm, a thousand feet northeast of where they had thought Scout was hiding, and Tino wanted to continue through a fallow field. I stopped him because we didn’t have permission from that property owner. She happened to be out in her yard, so I asked her if we could continue following the scent trail for the lost dog. She was an animal lover, and she said we could keep going.

Tino tracked through the field, in a zig zag pattern of a wandering dog, and then he pulled me into a thicket of red osier dogwood. Tino, being relatively low to the ground, with a pointy nose, and a complete disregard for anything but finding his quarry, plowed right through the brush. I had to slow him down while I navigated the thicket, since I never let him off leash. As we got closer to the creek, Tino and I both heard the sound of an animal in the brush. I paused, and kept Tino quiet and still. We both looked into the brush the best we could, quietly, hoping to catch a glimpse of the blue hood and confirm it was Scout. Unfortunately, when I saw him, he saw me, and he panicked. We were 35 feet away, but Scout started barking and rustling around in the brush. He was up against the creek and a fence for the farm yard. I hoped he would settle down and stay put. Instead, he struggled through the fence and ran into the pasture. The homeowner called to me, “I see him! He’s coming this way!”

I texted the owners of Scout, and they came over to the farm, hoping to calm him down. Several volunteers kept watch for him. I caught a glimpse of him running through a neighbor’s yard and back to the woods where we started. We heard horns honking on Covington-Sawyer Road near the bridge over Jenkins Creek. By the time I got there, a witness said he had gone back into the woods. We lost sight of him, but we thought he was probably in the brush near the creek. My gamble to use the search dog had paid off in the sense that we did locate Scout, but then he got spooked, which is something we always try to avoid if we can. This was the first time, in fifteen years of using search dogs to find lost dogs, where my search dog located the missing dog and we inadvertently spooked him out of a safe hiding spot.

When we didn’t get any new sightings for about an hour, I advised Scout’s people that we should set a trap and a wildlife camera. I didn’t want to try the search dog again because of Scout’s state of mind. They had it set for several days, and didn’t see Scout. Someone had set off loud fireworks nearby, and they were concerned that Scout had left that area. They asked us to come out and search again. I agreed to do that search, in hopes of finding Scout’s new hiding place. I wanted to make sure we did everything we could to avoid spooking him again.

On Wednesday, November 1st, I started Tino again at the last place we had seen Scout going into the woods. Tino followed the scent trail south towards Covington-Sawyer Road, across the bridge, and into a vacant lot between the creek and the railroad tracks. Tino followed the scent through a gravel parking lot for trucks, and to an equipment storage yard full of unused heavy construction machinery. The gate was bent so that a dog could get through easily, and a person could get through with much squirming and difficulty. Tino wanted to go in. It turned out that the owners of the dog happened to know the people who owned the equipment yard, which appeared to be mostly broken machines, and they felt it would be okay for Tino and I to go in. Tino got through easily, and I had to slide through on the gravel, on my side, like a large and awkward seal. Once inside the equipment yard, Tino followed the scent to several potential nesting spots, and eventually to a hole in the fence on the opposite side of the yard. We got back out and continued following the scent north.

After crossing the railroad tracks several times, the scent led into the woods on the opposite side of where Scout was originally. Tino at first was just pulling me through the dense brush. Eventually, we hit upon a trail that seemed to have recent animal traffic. Branches and vines were pushed aside, and the muddy ground showed indistinct footprints of a large quadruped. Tino followed it to the creek. Tino and I could both hear an animal across the creek. It was just about fifty feet away from the original place where we had located Scout on the 28th. The way Tino was looking across the creek, I was fairly certain it was Scout, even though I couldn’t see the animal. It appeared that a dog or a person could wade across the creek in that location. Tino and I waited at the creek’s edge, hoping for a glimpse of the blue hood. I decided not to get any closer, since we had spooked him last time. Tino laid down in the creek to cool off, even though it was a cool day.

Tino and I went back to the owners. I told them I was fairly certain we had located Scout again, but I didn’t want to get closer, for fear of making him run again. If it was Scout, he was behind a home associated with the farm. They happened to have surveillance cameras looking towards the creek. They set out some food for Scout, hoping he would show up on camera. The next day, he did come out of the woods for food. The farm owner called Scout’s people. They came over quickly. They talked softly outside the woods. After a few minutes, Scout came out to them. He was happy to be back with his family. They got him to the vet, and he checked out okay. He lost 7 pounds in 8 days on the run.

Tino did really excellent work on this search, as he always does. I try to always tell him what a good boy and a great dog he is. For roughly 20% of his searches, I have stopped him short of a patch of woods where I was fairly certain the lost dog had gone. I always want Tino to have the satisfaction of the find, so he can see that his search work has led to the missing dog, the way it always happens in training. This time, on the first search for Scout, we didn’t stop quite far enough back. On the second search for Scout, I made sure to keep Tino on the far side of the creek, so Scout could feel safe and stay put. I’m glad Tino and I got a second chance with Scout.

I am so thankful to have Valentino as my search partner and my friend. I couldn’t ask for a better son than Tino.