For nearly two hours, a mother in Colorado waited for any sign of her seven-year-old daughter, not knowing where she was or if she was safe.
Then a dog named Rex got his first real chance to prove himself.
The Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office responded to a call in Centennial, Colorado, last week after the young girl became separated from her mother.
Deputy John Gray arrived on scene with his K-9 partner, Rex, and got straight to work. Gray gave Rex the girl’s sneakers so the dog could learn her specific scent.
“You could see he sniffs those shoes, and then he knows the odor he’s looking for,” Gray told FOX31.
Instead of searching blindly, Rex could zero in on exactly who he needed to find.
What made the moment especially meaningful was that this was Rex’s very first real search.
He’d spent months training for it, but had never used those skills in an actual emergency.
Rex isn’t a typical K-9, either. According to Gray, he serves three roles: therapy dog, explosive detection dog, and now, tracker.
“He is one of the first dogs in the state to be trained the way he is,” Gray said, “because he’s kind of a triple threat.”
Training a dog to track missing people takes roughly 16 weeks, and on this night, that training paid off fast.
Rex picked up the girl’s scent from her shoes and began narrowing the search, guiding deputies toward a cluster of nearby backyards.
Gray followed him into one, and there she was.
Just 12 minutes after Rex started tracking, the search was over. The little girl was safe.
For her mother, after nearly two hours of not knowing, it was pure relief.
She was so grateful, in fact, that she offered Rex the very shoes that had led him to her daughter, hoping he could keep them as a chew toy.
Deputy Gray had to gently explain that even a hero dog has rules, and chewing on evidence isn’t one of the perks.
Rex may not have gotten to keep his souvenir, but he got something better: proof that all that training was worth it, when it mattered most.
Have you ever seen a K-9 in action?
Source:
1. Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office
2. kdvr – “Meet the Colorado K-9 who helped track down a missing girl”