Missing Person: My First Taste of a Working Dog
My first experience with a working dog came back in the 70’s. Up to that point, my dog work was limited to the realm of competition and hobby. Then one day, while I was training with Ed O’Brien, a well-respected trainer, a local OPP officer came to the kennel and asked if we had a tracking dog. He told us that an elderly woman with dementia was a missing person, and their usual dog was unavailable.
Ed and I just happened to have a German Shepard that was doing quite well with tracking, so we told him we could help. I arrived at the residence and prepared to start my search. In this case, I asked for some of the woman’s freshly worn clothing (which isn’t really helpful to the search, but it’s what people expect and helps put them at ease). I took the clothes and had the dog ‘down’ on the clothing and inhale the odour. With just a flash light, we began searching for a track. She took me to a cornfield with stalks approximately 6-feet tall. After going in about 10-15 ft., I could see a footprint on crushed corn stalks. Not wanting to waste any time, and unsure of what I might stumble across in the field, we pulled out and began searching the perimeter. We picked up her scent again on the far side of the field, and the dog led me to a line shed where we stopped. Seeing some footprints in the dirt on the outside of the shed, I realized that the woman was running just ahead of me. We went back to the house and explained the situation to the police. I told them I’d just had an indication near the line shed about a mile away, but that the woman seemed to be intentionally running from the dog. I explained I didn’t want to spook her or the dog, and so was stopping my search, but I told them I was confident they would find her nearby in the morning.
Sure enough, the following day a constable came to the kennel and told me they’d found the woman. She was eating eggs and drinking milk in the next farm over.
With our dog, we were able to let them know she was alive and help them focus their search area. It was satisfying to know we had helped play a role in returning that woman to safety. That was when I began to really understand the potential of a working dog and all the good they could do.