DOG meets dog
How a sniffer team is succesfully tracking down missing pets
When Django went missing, the dog’s concerned German owners were able to rely on a German shepherd named Feline to track down their beloved pet.
Feline is an unusual name for a dog (it means catlike). But then Feline is a most unusual dog, specially trained by her owner, Mandy van den Borg, to track lost pets of all species and return the runaways to their grieving owners.
Django went missing when he pulled so hard while out walking that his owner dropped the pooch’s flexi-retractable dog leash.
The sound of the plastic housing dragging along the pavement seems to have scared the little dog to run even faster as it bolted, first through a park, then over a motorway bridge, before disappearing into a neighbouring built-up area.
Van den Borg was called to find the missing pet while the trail was still warm. After a sniff at a blanket taken from Django’s basket, Feline was ordered to commence searching for “that” smell.
Feline followed Django’s trail for 90 minutes in total darkness and pouring rain. Sometimes she appeared to be going around in circles because of old scents left by the missing dog but eventually she picked up the trail again and led Van den Borg to a compost heap in a garden.
The sniffer dog issued its trained signal that the search was at an end.
Sure enough, there was little Django entangled in brambles.
“A dog communicates with its surrounding environment to a large degree with the help of its nose,” explains German veterinarian Bastian Bronnert.
“Smells can be detected because they leave chains of molecules floating in the air. A dog can detect this and follow a trail, even from great distances.”
It takes several years of special training before a sniffer dog can be relied upon to seek out and find articles such as drugs or explosives.
“Dogs associate the search with receiving a reward or enjoy it as a game and activity,” says Bronnert.
A dog’s acute sense of smell is important in the wild to seek out prey, find its pack or detect whether a bitch is in heat, with long-nosed dogs having up to 250 million olfactory cells.
“The cranial nerve for odours is significantly more pronounced than other nerve chords in dogs,” explains Bronnert.
Tracking smells requires a great deal of concentration and dogs quickly tire when required to differentiate between odours, with Bronnert comparing it to running a marathon.
Van den Borg and her companions in the western German city of Essen carry out their work on a voluntary basis, out of love for animals.
“We don’t look for money, because we all know how worried the pet owners usually are,” she says.
However, many owners are so delighted to have been reunited with their lost pets that they happily make a voluntary donation to the group.
Unfortunately, not every search is a success, as there is nothing to stop a dog once it runs away when it is off a leash.
“The dog is normally in an unfamiliar environment and scared, which reduces the chances of finding him again,” says Van den Borg, who recommends that worried owners should just remain where the dog was last seen, as runaways often return to this location.
The search for missing cats is particularly difficult, as sniffer dogs are not able to follow the routes that cats slip along. The best strategy is to narrow down the search area and try to tempt the cat out into the open.
“Pet owners should always have their animals registered with a chip implant,” recommends Van den Borg.
Recently, the 39-year-old was asked to try to find a missing boxer, which was sick and probably ran away to die.
Feline was able to track the ailing dog down in time so that its owners could say a final goodbye.
