Search for Grover

Pictured above are Grover, Jill, and Chris, moments after Grover came back to the point of escape.  Grover escaped out the front door last night, and his family and friends spent all night looking for him.  They put up flyers around the neighborhood, and they received five sightings.  The most recent sighting was this afternoon around 1, just before they called MPP.  I told them they would most likely find their dog without the help of MPP, but that Kelsy and I would be willing to do a search if they wanted.  They did want all the help they could get, and they wanted to do everything they could to find Grover fast.  Kelsy and I started our search at about 3 PM, at Alder St. and Lake Washington Blvd in the Leschi neighborhood of Seattle.  The most recent sighting, two hours earlier, was of Grover heading down Alder toward Lake Washington Blvd.  Kelsy took the scent from a towel that Grover always rode on in their car.  She started down the hill, but then turned around and followed up the hill.

Kelsy tracked for about 2.5 miles over the next hour.  The conditions were perfect, about 50 degrees, almost no wind, and the ground was damp from recent rains.  We stopped tracking when we ran into private property, about 1.5 miles south of the point of escape.  About an hour later, Jill got a call of a sighting from two hours earlier, on Lake Washington Blvd.  We could not pinpoint the exact location based on the person's description, and when I tried Kelsy on the scent at the point we thought he was talking about, she gave her negative signal.  After that, we received a new call of recent sighting five houses away from the point of escape.  I started Kelsy on the scent trail there, and she indicated that Grover was everywhere.  Kelsy went up and down a long flight of stairs, through people's yards and all around the block, but she could not pinpoint Grover.  I told Jill and Chris that Grover was most likely nearby, but that the looping and overlapping trails made it difficult for Kelsy to pinpoint his location.  I advised them to hang out on the front porch and talk to each other in a normal conversational tone, and Grover would likely come home to them.

Kelsy and I went to the truck, and I waited there for about five minutes while I checked my email and made some notes on the case.  Just as I was about to leave, their daughter knocked on the window of my truck and said that Grover had come home!  I got out and saw Grover a few houses away, on the sidewalk.  He was cautious, looking at them but not advancing.  Jill and Chris lay flat on the ground, following the advice I had given them, and instead of shouting Grover's name, they just talked softly.  I got to see Grover come up to Chris cautiously, and then throw himself onto Chris once he got the positive scent of his owner.  Grover was very happy to be home, and he seemed to be in excellent health.

Jill and Chris graciously agreed to let Kelsy find Grover in a short practice run.  Jill hid with Grover about five houses away, and Kelsy took the scent and charged right up to Grover.  I gave Kelsy lots of treats and praise.  This is how I would like to end every search.  Of course, I would like Kelsy to find the dog every time, but short of that, I would like her to find a dog, even a planted dog, to keep her morale up and reinforce her motivation.

Looking back on the search path, I would say it is possible Kelsy was right all the way, but there is also a good chance that she had jumped from Grover's scent to the scent of another dog for about the last half mile.  I can't say for sure that Kelsy was on the right scent the whole time.

I still think Jill and Chris would likely have found Grover without the help of Kelsy and MPP, but I do think that our advice, the confirmation of the search dog, and our presence helped.  Most of all, I was happy to be there at the  moment when Grover was reunited with his family.