Valentino Finds a Pomeranian

We race against time to find him before coyotes do.

Valentino Finds BadAss

I took Tino with me as we went to a volunteer’s house to scan a deceased dog for a chip.  She had picked up the dog from the freeway, and we were trying to see if we could find the owner.  On the way there, I received a call from someone who had lost a Pomeranian in Renton.  The little dog had been missing two days, and the most recent sighting, just two hours prior, was 4 miles from the point of escape.  The 18-pound dog had crossed a four-lane highway twice, at least, in an area where I had picked up remains of dogs in the past. That stretch of highway has no barriers to keep animals off.

I wanted to learn a bit more about the dog and the situation, to try to determine if a search dog would be helpful.  Brian, the owner, said that his 10-year-old dog, BadAss, had backed out of his collar and run off near his girlfriend’s apartment, many miles away from home.  The fluffy dog ran from near the cemetery, down a steep hill into a wooded ravine, across the busy highway, and was seen on someone’s surveillance camera on the other side of the Cedar River and the highway.  After that, he had been seen crossing the highway and the river back to the north side.  The last sighting was in a vacant lot beside the river, just a couple of hours before he called me.  It was getting late in the day, and I didn’t have time for a typical three hour search.  I had to get home to take care of the other four dogs.  Because BadAss was running so far so fast, in a dangerous area, I wanted to take advantage of the recent sighting if we could.  I told Brian we could come and give it a try, even if we couldn’t do a long search.

We met the owner near Maple Valley Highway, by the Cedar River, which was running high and fast.  The vacant lot where the dog had been seen a few hours earlier was overgrown with tall grass, young trees, and brambles.  A heavier thundershower had just passed, and a light drizzle fell on us.  The temperature was 52 degrees, which is cool, but still warmer than ideal for Tino, who overheats because of his thick coat and his high energy. I felt optimistic about our chances of finding BadAss.

The little dog had escaped when he backed out of his collar, so we had the collar to use as a scent article.  I took the collar back to the car and presented it to Tino in the car so he could take time to smell it thoroughly.  Then I put his harness on.  Once the harness goes on, Tino gets crazy, barking loudly, ready to run.  Tino also smelled a blanket that BadAss had peed on, which gave him a more complete scent profile.    Tino pulled hard, toward the river.  About 150 feet into the search, I slipped in the mud and fell into the bushes.  As soon as I went down, Tino stopped and waited for me.  That’s not necessarily something I trained him to do.  He just doesn’t like to go anywhere without me, so if I ever drop his leash, he returns to me.  Brian helped me up, and we continued to the river, and then west along the river.  In the sand, I could see faint footprints of the little dog.  In the mud nearby, I saw deep impressions of the footprints of a larger canid, possibly a coyote.  A large dog was known to wander here, but this was also prime habitat for coyotes.  Since we were working a scent trail, I didn’t stop to examine the prints carefully.  The scent trail led to the river, and I could see the little footprints close to the water’s edge.  Although the river was fast and deep, at this point it was shallow and much slower, and a dog could get a drink without being swept away.  Tino did get a drink from the river.  He was already a little warm even though we had just started.    

As we followed the scent trail north, away from the river, the little dog had gone through a grove of young alder saplings.  He could get through easily.  Tino could plow his way through, bending the saplings as he went.  Tino dragged me though with many branches whipping me.  I mostly closed my eyes, held onto the leash with one hand, and blocked the branches from my face with the other hand.  After the saplings, we hit a grassy field near some giant cedar trees.  Tino spent some time sniffing around the area, and it seemed that BadAss must have loitered there a while.  From there, the scent led out to the road and west.  As we tracked down the road, dipping into yards along the way, I could see footprints in the mud of the larger dog or coyote, but I didn’t see any little prints.  One scenario that crossed my mind was that we could be following the scent of the little dog as his body was being carried in the mouth of a coyote.  Tino has done that before, following the scent trail of where a small dog’s body was carried in a coyote’s mouth.  I hoped that wasn’t the case here.  At the end of the road, Tino wanted to go behind a house, toward the grass by the river.  Brian knocked on the door, and the homeowner gave us permission.  He said that coyotes pass that way often.  We followed along by the river through a few more yards.  Along the way, there was a small creek, and Tino laid down in it to cool off again.  At the end of the last yard, the scent trail led into some brambles.  There was a significant amount of coyote scat in that area.  The brambles would have been impossible to track through, but a small dog could have gotten through.  Or a coyote.  There were two possible scenarios.  One, Tino had gotten onto the scent trail going backwards in time, toward the weaker scent, and this was the direction BadAss had come from.  It was closer to the point of escape.  The second scenario was that the scent trail got weaker because, by that point, BadAss had been partially consumed by the coyote and there was less scent to follow.  I did not mention that possibility to Brian.  I said we should go back to the point where the scent trail came out to the road, and see if we could pick up the scent the other way.

On the walk back to the starting point,  Brian knocked on doors, to see if anyone had witnessed anything.  Several residents said they had seen the dog earlier, closer to the highway.  As Brian was talking to the residents, Tino and I returned to the car and I put him in.  Then I went down to the river to take a closer look at the footprints.  I took some pictures and adjusted the contrast so I could see them more clearly.  The little prints were definitely right for a small dog.  The larger prints were either partials or distorted.  I was leaning toward them being a coyote, on the larger side, but I couldn’t be certain.  Also, some of the prints showed a rapid change of direction, is if in pursuit.  When I got back to the cars, Brian said that the last neighbor he talked to had seen BadAss just a couple of hours ago, across the street and east from the point where we had come out onto the road.  I got Tino out of the car and took him over to that lot, which had a storm water retention pond.

I tried to present the scent article to Tino, but he wasn’t interested. He was already picking up the scent and tracking.  Tino did run down to the storm water pond and wade in to cool off and get a drink, as expected, but then he got back on the scent and followed it uphill to the north.  We followed along a deer trail.  Tino seemed to have a good strong scent.  It was after sunset, almost dark as Tino led me deeper into the woods.  We hit a muddy patch and I saw more prints.  The small print, the size of an 18-pound dog, pointed uphill.  Right next to it was a much larger print of a canid.  It was just a partial, the toes but not the central pad.  It looked like a fresh coyote print, but I couldn’t be certain.  It seemed unlikely that a random dog would be following BadAss into the woods on this particular evening.  Logically, the print was more likely to be a coyote’s.  But BadAss was still walking on his own feet at that point.  Tino dragged me through another small creek and then up a steep hill towards a house with lights on.  We hit a thicket of brambles that we could not pass through, but which BadAss could have gone under without much trouble.  Tino pointed to a blackberry thorn with his nose, pointing out a single hair.  I used my shears to clip the cane and bring it closer so I could look at it with the light.  It was the right color and texture for BadAss, and it was low to the ground, which was a good thing, as opposed to being at the height of a coyote’s mouth.

I had been recording our path with a GPS app the whole time, and I took a screenshot and sent it to Brian, to let him know where we had gone.  Then I worked on getting us out of the brambles.  I could hear the traffic to the east, and it made more sense to try to get across the creek and through the brambles, rather than retracing our whole path.  I used my shears to cut through the blackberry vines and we slowly made our way to the road.  At several points, the mud grabbed my shoes and threatened to keep them, and I had to curl my toes and twist my feet to wrestle my shoes out of the mud.  I used the light from my iPhone to see the easiest way through.

Once we got up to the road, Tino picked up a very fresh scent of the Pomeranian.  It seemed that we had caught up to him and we were very close.  I used my light to alert passing cars that we were tracking along the road.  Tino was pulling hard.  We crossed the road, and Tino tried to pull me into a driveway, private property with a barn.  A couple was walking down the hill, back toward their car, which was parked on the side of the road with hazard lights blinking.  At first I thought it was Brian and his girlfriend trying to find us, but then I realized it was a different car.  They were starting to pull away, and I waved my light at them to get them to stop.  They said they had just seen a little wet Pomeranian go down the driveway where Tino was wanting to go.  I thanked them.  I wanted to let Tino track right up to BadAss, after all of his hard work, but I didn’t want to spook the little dog, especially if he had been pursued by coyotes all evening, and might be feeling harassed.  I called Brian and he got there quickly as Tino and I kept watch by the road.

I told Brian that we had tracked to that point, and that a couple had just seen BadAss going into the property with the barn.  I instructed Brian to use calming signals, to not call the name of his dog. I told him that if he saw BadAss, he should not look at him.  He should pretend he didn’t see him, and sit down on the ground, and talk to himself in a normal tone of voice.  I gave him my flashlight to use.  As Brian went in to look, I went to the downhill side of the property, to watch and make sure BadAss didn’t run out that side.  As we were looking around that area, a woman from the next house came out and asked us what we were looking for.  I explained that we were searching for a little dog, and she said she just saw a little Pomeranian run back into the barn property.  Just then I got a call from Brian, saying he got his dog.  Tino and I went and met them at the car, and Tino got to smell the little dog in the car.  Tino smelled him a long time, as if completing the mental picture of the scent he had been tracking all this time.  BadAss was muddy and wet, and the scents in his fur probably told the story of his 48 hours of adventure, traveling miles, crossing rivers and highways, pursued by coyotes.  Brian said, “You saved my life.”  I had string cheese in my pocket, and I handed it to Brian so he could give it to Tino, in celebration of a job well done.

When searching for any dog, whether in practice or a live search, I want Tino to have a “Walk up find,” where he gets to follow the scent trail all the way to the lost dog.  This is rewarding for Tino, and gives him a sense of mission accomplished.  On actual searches for missing dogs, we often don’t get to continue on the final portion of the scent trail.  This might be because we hit private property and can’t get permission to continue.  Often, we stop short because I suspect the lost dog is close by, in a yard or in the woods, and I don’t want to flush the dog out of a safe spot.  That was the case with BadAss.  The scent trail and the witness statements told us that the lost dog was right nearby, probably just on the other side of the barn. Tino wanted to run right up to him, but I stopped him short because we didn’t want to make BadAss feel like he was being chased.  Instead, I had Brian go in alone, quietly, to use calming signals to get BadAss.  Once secured, Tino got to go up to him and smell him in the car.  It wasn’t quite as good as a walk up find, but it was the next best thing, and I think Tino understood why.

Brian was very thankful for our help.  I never did tell him that a coyote seemed to be tracking BadAss at the same time we were.  Brian understood that his dog had been running around in an environment full of hazards, and he was thankful to have found him in time.  I was very proud of Tino.  Of course, I am always proud of him, even when we don’t find the missing dog because the scent trail is interrupted.  On nights like this, especially because we don’t always get to have that walk up find, I am really glad to have Tino for a partner, a friend, a son.  I told him about a hundred times what a good dog he was and how happy I was with him.  Then I shut up and let him fall asleep for the rest of the drive home in the darkness.