On Friday 26th March 2021, I was attending some professional development training with Conservation K9 consultancy at Erddig National Trust, in nearby Wrexham with my dog Rico (6-year-old rescued Kokoni cross breed from Portugal).
The course was going well, then during one of Rico’s trials to find some missing scent (truffle oil) all of the course attendees could hear the panicked cries of “HENRY” “HENRY”.
Rachel and Rico at conservation K9 Consultancy doing their training
Rushing out into the carpark at the Felin Puleston Outdoor centre we met local family, The Jones. Their recently rescued Tibetan Terrier, Henry, had run off on his walk around Erddig 3 hours earlier. More family members had turned up to join the search, but poor, shy Henry was nowhere to be found.
The family had already contacted Missing Dogs Team Wales (see poster to the left) and Henry’s photo and information was all over social media and local social networking groups.
Unfortunately, with Henry being rescued during lockdown the family hadn’t managed to get his microchip details updated, which was adding to their distress. If he was found, would anyone know he belonged to them?
For the last 18 months I have been training my pet dog, Rico, in the fun dog activity of pet trailing with Becky Smith, at Pet Trailer U.K. (www.pettrailer.co.uk).
This giant game of hide and seek teaches dogs to search for missing pets using their nose. However due to Covid-19 restrictions, we had not done any fun scent trails for months, and we certainly have never helped in the case of a genuinely missing dog before.
I was watching the situation in front of me unfold, wondering if having never done a search for a real missing dog before, and with 6 year old Kokoni X, Rico being tired from 2 days training, if we could help at all?!
Was it worth trying?
Deciding that I couldn’t possibly just stay quiet and not help, the next hurdle to overcome was finding a scent article of missing dog Henry.
A scent article is what the trailing dog, in this case Rico, uses to establish who or what they are trying to find.
With limited options available, I picked Rico up and popped him in the boot of the family’s car. The problem is, the car doesn’t just smell of Henry though, it smells of the whole family and their other dog, a beautiful Golden Retriever. To try and reduce this problem, I then let Rico sniff each of the 3 family members at the scene where Henry last was sighted, and their other dog, so that Rico could eliminate them from his search. This was something I had learnt from Pet Trailer U.K. as she is very thorough with her training and now I really understand why.
Off we went!
We were on the search for Henry, accompanied by one of his family members to approach Henry if he was spotted, as he is nervous and would likely flee if approached by a stranger.
Pretty early on Rico indicated across a river, twice, but I couldn’t get across. It was too deep and the other side of the riverbank was rocks enclosed in metal mesh which I could never scale. So we had to go the long way round, we went back over a bridge and then Rico re-joined the trail at the point he had indicated to. He walked straight passed a food bank where Rico literally ignored all the food, as he was so focused on the task in hand.
He kept telling me to go through a broken down, discarded lorry with the back down, but I couldn’t get down there. Instead, I picked him up onto a 5ft wall. He walked along the top to the end. Indicating again under a tunnel but there was no path, no safe way for us to go.
I had to come up with another solution, so I took him off working and walked round to original search point. Again Rico had to re-join the trail.
This time he took us through some hellish undergrowth to the other side of where he indicated before. Again, we couldn’t get through 6ft high green metal fencing. No way under, over or round.
Rico tried every route we could find, but sadly as the evening started to draw in, Henry still wasn’t found.
I was disappointed but I also trust Rico implicitly and knew he was on to something. We just couldn’t find a point to re-join the trail.
As there was nothing more we could do, we headed home where I shared the story on my Instagram account (@NosetotrailUK) urging owners to get a decent scent article for their pets by following @PettrailerUK’s step by step guide. (You can see the actual post here: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CM4_9hxIdZk/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link )
You never know when your dog may go missing, and if Rico is going to help your pet be found – he needs something to work from!
Fortunately this story has a happy ending, as a few hours later, the Jones family decided to go and have one more look for Henry. Exactly where Rico had taken them, the family found their dog!
The owners contacted me on my Facebook page @Nosetotrailpetservices saying “Thank you so so so much for today!!! Please thank Rico for us!! We found him exactly where Rico was taking us!!! He was spot on!”
I’m so glad Henry has been found, and I am so grateful to the team at Dog Cast Radio, Anna at BBC Radio Kent, Rachel Spencer (for getting Rico in The Sun) and Siobhan McNally (The Mirror) for sharing this story and raising awareness of the fabulous work Pet Trailer U.K. does!
If you would like to start pet trail training with your dog then GREAT NEWS! As of August 2022 Nose to Trail’s very own pet trail and man trail training sessions are booking on the website. Just visit: Book Online (nosetotrail.co.uk) and click “classes/events” to see the next available sessions.