20140309 Fozzie's First Live Search and First Walk-up Find!

On March 9th I received a call that Marlena, a mini-dachshund, had escaped in Bellevue, dragging a leash behind her.  I was out on another call, and I didn't have time to go home and get the official scent trailing dog, Kelsy.  I had Fozzie with me, so I offered to try the search with him, since it was a fresh trail and time was of the essence.  Fozzie was very excited to get Marlena's scent from a towel, and he charged off into the park.  After about a mile, Fozzie hit a fence topped with barbed wire, for a Boeing facility manned by security guards.  Being a Sunday afternoon, the complex was deserted except for the guards.  I asked at the front gate, and they agreed to let Fozzie and me go in to search.  The scent trail looped around in the landscape near an office building, and then the trail went back under the fence in another area.  I had to leave at that point because of prior commitments.

Around 10 PM, the security guard called to say Marlena had been seen in the Boeing complex.  Fozzie and I went back out, and started at the point the security guard last saw little Marlena.  Fozzie followed the scent trail around a building, and there was Marlena!  Fozzie's first walk-up find.  However, she didn't actually let Fozzie walk up to her.  Instead, she ran past us toward the gap under the fence.  Fozzie excitedly chased after her, but he had to wait for me to follow along on the end of the leash, too slow for Marlena.  This seems to be a trick Marlena learned, that she could evade whoever might be chasing her by slipping under the fence.  Fozzie pinpointed the place Marlena went under the fence, which was a particularly dense patch of brush.  Fozzie could have followed, but I could not.  Around midnight, Fozzie and I went home.  The next day, Kelsy worked the scent trail, which ran southeast of the complex and came back to the woods near the main gate.

The dogs and I never did catch Marlena.  The security guards reported that someone was seen walking a dog matching Marlena's description, on a leash, a couple days later.  My guess is that someone found Marlena when her leash caught on something, and they decided to keep her.  Many volunteers put up large posters in the area, but four weeks later, no one has come forward to admit having Marlena.

Our inability to capture Marlena does not detract from Fozzie's fine work on his first official case and his first walk-up find.