K9s Find Grayson

 From Private Investigator Angie Rutherford:

Grayson went missing on March 26, 2017 approximately 9:30 am when his owner stopped at Starbucks for coffee. There had been no sightings of the year-old Golden Retriever since the day he bolted. On the morning of March 30, 2017, we began our search for Grayson with K9 Oliver in front of the Starbucks. Oliver picked up his scent going across 6 lanes of traffic to the South turning West and then proceeding due South on State St. It appeared the young dog ran down the middle of the street continuing South across 16th St NW. We brought in K9 Dani as a second confirmation for direction of travel and the little Jack Russell picked up on Grayson’s scent following the path to the South as had Oliver.

At this point, it was decided to bring out K9 Carson. Carson was started at 16th St NW. Carson picked up Grayson’s scent and proceeded South on State St. NW. After going approximately 350 yards, it was obvious that Carson knew something wasn’t right. He alerted on the edge of the road that the scent was no longer there. Becoming concerned that someone may have picked up Grayson we decided to perform some perimeter scans. We continued South, then West and back to the North about a block away and Carson was adamant that Grayson had not continued this direction. Our youngster, K9 Dakota was brought in and given scent in the area where Grayson and his owner had begun their walk on the day of escape. As we approached the 16th and State St. intersection Dakota made the decision to turn South and continued as Carson had. Near 14th and State St, Dakota also alerted that the scent went no further in this direction.

Time to bring in lead dog, K9 Nico. The decision was made to take Nico two and a half blocks West of the Point of Escape. This was approximately a quarter mile from where we had known scent. Nico is an air scent dog and the goal was to set a perimeter or have Nico tell us where he had scent last. When Nico was given scent he immediately headed West towards Starbucks and to the trail the three other dogs had found. Nico had detected the scent trail for Grayson from a quarter mile away. We returned to the vehicles to re-group and it was decided to bring K9 Oliver, the foot step tracker, back in.

Oliver again picked up scent on State St. where he had left off earlier and headed South.  He took us to a house where construction work was being performed. We asked permission to go into the rear yard and then proceeded to the fence. Little did we know we were practically standing on top of where Grayson was hiding. Oliver was very hesitant to leave the area but he reluctantly ollowed my lead to move on. We gave a flyer to the people working on the house.

Within 2-3 minutes of leaving that house, the woman came running out and said she thought they saw Grayson. We all went running back and to all our amazement when we approached the fence, where we had just been standing, we saw Grayson poke his head out of a culvert that was surrounded by debris. The tears started pouring as we all realized the young Golden was trying to belly crawl out to us as his leash was still attached. Oliver was in on the action as if to say, “See, I tried to tell you he was here even though you couldn’t see him.”  Welcome home Grayson!!!