Dusk's Find

Last night I came in from teaching an obedience class and was ready to put my feet up. Darrin said, "Hey you had some phone calls and one of them sounded kind of important." So I drug myself off the couch and over to check messages. There were two frantic calls.

The first was from a friend who lives way up north by the Canadian border. She said, "Oh Joni, I am sick! I sent my cocker spaniel boy down to your area with a gal to breed her female. This afternoon he escaped and is on the run. I don't know if you can help or not but I was hoping you could maybe take one of your tracking dogs over and see." The next call was from Darlene, the gal who had lost the dog. I called her back but since it was already dark and nearly 10 PM we decided to get together to search in the morning. I had some reservations about trying to use my tracking dog. First he is not trained to track other dogs...in fact he is trained to ignore animal trails. Next problem is not having a definite start point for him to work from. My dogs are trained to ground track unlike a search and rescue dog who is trained to air scent and then ground track. What this means is my dogs aren't trained to search an area until they find the scent they need a starting point. Lastly I am hoping to enter him in a tracking test in June and don't want to totally confuse him by throwing a bunch of weird circumstances at him. But on the other hand if my dog was lost I would be so grateful if someone would at least try.

This morning after multiple delays I loaded up my trackers and headed down. I thought I would give it a whirl but I would not push them to track. If they could do it fine but I did not want to confuse or frustrate them. I picked up a very worried Darlene and we drove to the areas where the dog was last seen the night before. The first stop I got out Ivy who is not an experienced tracker but I can tell if she hits on a trail. We walked around for several minutes, she seemed to pick up a scent which she happily followed for a while but lost interest. In any case the dog didn't seem to be there. The next stop was a shack which the dog had been spotted at. I got out Dusk who is a great tracker. I scented him on the bed the lost dog had used. He seemed to track a bit but it was without commitment. The next stop was only a few feet off a busy road. I did see some dog tracks and Darlene felt those tracks could be the tracks of the lost dog. I set the stage by placing the dog bed on the paw prints. I brought Dusk to the spot in his tracking harness and asked him to down. I said "Find the puppy" Dusk looked up at me like I was nuts...this is not the routine. I again said "Dusk, find the puppy." Dusk smelled the bed them started to roll on it. I thought he was just messing around but then he got up and put his nose to the ground and started to track. He wasn't heavy on the line like he gets when we are tracking a person but he was committed and I followed his lead. We tracked down into the river bottom. There was some downed limbs and lots of long dead grass. We headed into a marsh area. Dusk was still tracking. I saw him track into a dead end and then follow the trail right past me again and he started picking his way through the mostly dried marsh. I fed out the tracking line to him. The marsh wasn't very wide....only about 50 feet or so, on the other side was a yard and then up the bank, a home and out buildings. With my gimp leg I didn't feel it would be wise to follow him into the marsh. I mentally marked the spot he was tracking then called Dusk back to me. We headed back to the van and without taking off his harness I loaded him up and we drove around the marsh and into the driveway. We got out and I put Dusk by the marsh in the area I expected the track would come out. I again asked him to "Find the puppy", with out missing a beat Dusk put his head down and we were tracking again. We crossed the lawn and went between the outbuildings. We headed into some long grass again. Dusk tracking and me studying him while I obediently followed. About 50 yards into the grass I heard a noise that sounded like birds being flushed up, when I looked up I saw a flash of buff color. Dusk had not seen the movement and kept tracking. Then I could actually see the dog. Much to my amazement there he was, standing, watching us and trying to decide if he should run. I spoke to him and he started to head my way. I called to Darlene that I could see him. She started moving forward and was squeaking a toy. The lost cocker started to circle and then fell back into the flight mode and took off. I hollered at her to stand still. Last time he had seen her she had made a desperate grab for him and I think he was suspicious of her. I pulled Dusk from the track and again was able to get eye contact with the cocker. I called him by name and he started to head my way. As he approached Dusk kind of ran at him then realized that this was the "PUPPY" he had FOUND HIM!!! When Dusk has his "find" he likes to roll around the ground kicking his legs in the air in glee. Dusk started goofing off and rolling. The cocker knew then that there was nothing to fear and although he was still trembling he came to me and I slip a lead on to him. There were a few minutes of rejoicing and tears while Dusk got praised, rolled around like a fool and ate all the treats we had. Tonight there is a little buff cocker safe and sound resting in his crate. There is an amazing blue merle aussie tracking dog laying on the floor behind my chair and all is right with the world.