‘Halo’, The Dog Who Finds Lost Pets
Have you ever had a dog run off when a gate broke in the wind, or a dog or cat run off spooked from a storm or fireworks? Your mind goes to every bad thing that could happen from coyotes to traffic and you call the pet’s name till your throat hurts and you get everyone you can posting online and on telephone poles. Karen Nixon looks at the lost pet posts and offers to help along with other volunteers at the Pet Detectives Team. They come to you with a dog on a leash, like Halo the white Swiss Shepherd, that can sniff your pet’s scent off a blanket or pet bed and follow the trail from where it left your home to where its hiding. Karen describes how this works and how cats and dogs hide differently. Deb mentions videos she uploaded onto deb wolfe-pet expert on YouTube which demo how to teach any dog to find the car and find people with a game.
Listen to Episode #185 Now:
Karen Nixon and ‘Halo’, The Dog Who Finds Lost Pets
BIO:
Transcript:
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Announcer: This is Pet Life Radio.
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Announcer: Let's talk pets.
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Deborah Wolfe: Hello, you're listening to Animal Party on Pet Life Radio.
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Deborah Wolfe: Party, party, party, bring your dogs and cats, that's what we're doing today.
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Deborah Wolfe: In fact, sometimes you have a party, or fireworks, or somebody leaves the gate open, or something, the wind knocks one down, something happens, and all of a sudden, your pets are missing.
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Deborah Wolfe: And you start posting on Facebook, and you start calling everybody, and you put signs up in the neighborhood, and there's this feeling of dread that takes over your whole family, as you hope your dog or cat isn't like, harassed by coyotes or killed on a road.
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Deborah Wolfe: So what could you do?
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Deborah Wolfe: Well, if you're lucky, like I was, when a gate blew over in a windstorm, you find out about a person like Karen Nixon with her dog, Halo, Halo aptly named.
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Deborah Wolfe: So welcome to the show, Karen.
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Karen Nixon: Hi, good morning, and thank you.
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Deborah Wolfe: It's great having you.
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Deborah Wolfe: Your beautiful, white, looks like a white shepherd.
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Deborah Wolfe: What is your dog?
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Deborah Wolfe: What breed is your dog?
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Karen Nixon: Halo is a white Swiss shepherd.
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Deborah Wolfe: Ah, okay.
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Deborah Wolfe: So for everybody out there, pointy ears, medium size build for a large dog, completely white, like the snow, perky, perky eyes and alert and happy tail and super affectionate with me, even though I was instructed not to distract Halo.
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Deborah Wolfe: So Halo came to me when a terrible windstorm knocked over a bunch of gates and these two foster dogs got out, brother and sister Golden Retrievers, that were waiting for their forever homes and they got out and I just didn't know where they were.
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Deborah Wolfe: So maybe you can tell everybody how that was for you, Karen.
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Karen Nixon: I saw the post on Facebook.
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Karen Nixon: We were new to this.
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Karen Nixon: We had just started looking for pets.
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Karen Nixon: I think our first one was in September, but it wasn't really until December that we started doing it more often.
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Karen Nixon: And somebody had tagged me in the post about Sunny and Ruby and asked if I could go help.
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Karen Nixon: And I think that's when we got in touch with each other.
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Karen Nixon: It was quite cold.
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Karen Nixon: I remember it was dark at night.
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Deborah Wolfe: Freezing.
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Deborah Wolfe: Yeah.
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Deborah Wolfe: Wet, freezing, miserable weather.
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Deborah Wolfe: Yes.
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Karen Nixon: It was, wasn't it?
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Karen Nixon: It was absolutely miserable.
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Karen Nixon: And the concern was for the pops being out in the cold that long and close to the road.
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Karen Nixon: So I was pretty confident that we could find them or at least find the direction that they went in.
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Deborah Wolfe: So I was not as confident.
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Deborah Wolfe: I was so skeptical because I thought, okay, you're talking about Camp Good Dog where every inch of ground is centered by a lot of dogs, various dogs, multiple dogs at any given day.
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Deborah Wolfe: And these two particularly, every inch of the property they've been on.
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Deborah Wolfe: So how are you gonna find their trail?
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Deborah Wolfe: I thought, oh, come on, right?
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Deborah Wolfe: Like, but I've seen dogs when you handle a stick and then you throw it into a pile of sticks and they pick out the one you handled.
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Deborah Wolfe: I've seen it, so I should have known better.
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Deborah Wolfe: But I thought, okay, I gotta give this a try.
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Deborah Wolfe: Last ditch effort, I've tried everything else.
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Deborah Wolfe: And then you came over, it was already getting dark.
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Deborah Wolfe: I thought, oh my God, this lady is so lovely.
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Deborah Wolfe: She's really optimistic.
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Deborah Wolfe: I wonder if she ever succeeds.
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Deborah Wolfe: And we did get misled for a while.
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Deborah Wolfe: Maybe you could talk about that.
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Deborah Wolfe: We spent a lot of time in the back field for no reason, right?
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Karen Nixon: We sure did.
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Karen Nixon: We did a lot of circles of where the dogs had been.
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Karen Nixon: I mean, we got that good track right off the gate, right to the food storage room.
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Karen Nixon: Hala made that quick left there, and then we could see their paw prints.
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Karen Nixon: They'd gone up to take a sniff at that door, and then down towards the back field, and there's so much odor there, because they had come back and forth and back and forth, you know, over so much time, every day.
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Karen Nixon: Plus that night, they had been running around there on their little adventure to start.
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Karen Nixon: So we really got caught up in a lot of odor around there.
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Karen Nixon: Then down in the back field, I know you were a little skeptical there.
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Karen Nixon: I knew they wouldn't be in the field because it's fence, but I was hoping we could catch up with some odor from the forest, from air-scenting, and see if they would come running out.
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Karen Nixon: Yeah, we're not going to get a track out of there.
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Karen Nixon: But if they were somewhere in your neighbor's properties off in the forest, if we circle and get the right wind direction, Hila would be able to pick them up off in the forest.
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Karen Nixon: And if they heard us, they might have come prodding to the fence.
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Deborah Wolfe: So all day long, we had been calling them and calling them and driving around and calling them and walking the fences with their best friends and all this kind of stuff.
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Deborah Wolfe: And we actually wanted, you know, these were intact dogs and there was a female in heat at the kennel.
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Deborah Wolfe: So we were kind of taking her out to use her to lure him back.
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Deborah Wolfe: Nothing was working.
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Deborah Wolfe: And when you and I traipsed around, just to give our listeners an idea, I mean, it's torrential downpour in the rainforest and it's still winter time and it's just freezing and the wind is picking up.
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Deborah Wolfe: And this lovely woman, Karen, and her beautiful white dog are making me wander around over and over in circles.
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Deborah Wolfe: It's a poorie grade.
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Deborah Wolfe: And I'm thinking this is not going to work.
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Deborah Wolfe: But then the dog really got intense and it started to lead us out of the property, out toward the driveway.
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Deborah Wolfe: And then toward a certain direction, we weren't even halfway across my own property when my Golden Retrievers started barking back.
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Deborah Wolfe: And they were on the other side of the road.
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Deborah Wolfe: And I'd been telling Karen the whole time, I don't think they'll cross the road because they're scared of cars.
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Deborah Wolfe: They'll stay on the property.
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Deborah Wolfe: And I don't think they'll go anywhere because they love it here.
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Deborah Wolfe: You know, they're foster dogs and they're really bonded to the place.
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Deborah Wolfe: And I just don't think they're going to go anywhere.
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Deborah Wolfe: Well, sure enough, they didn't go anywhere except the ditch across the street from my house where they were trapped half in water in the freezing cold for hours and hours and hours, so much so that it turned to ice in their coats.
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Deborah Wolfe: And it's because they were afraid of cars that they couldn't cross back.
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Deborah Wolfe: And well, we're going to go to break and I'll tell you the rest of the story.
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Deborah Wolfe: Stay tuned on Animal Party, Pet Life Radio.
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Announcer: Take a bite out of your competition.
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Announcer: Let's Talk Pets on petliferadio.com.
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Deborah Wolfe: Hello, we're back on Animal Party, Pet Life Radio with Karen Nixon and Halo the Rescuing Dog.
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Deborah Wolfe: Search and rescue guard dog already.
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Deborah Wolfe: Okay, I know you're just learning, but that was miraculous result, because we've been looking all day, calling all day, and they didn't answer us, they didn't do anything.
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Deborah Wolfe: It barked at Halo when Halo came near.
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Deborah Wolfe: But so they were in this ditch, I can figure out what happened.
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Deborah Wolfe: We have a neighbor dog, a very large, rich back male, that comes over to the property and is very intimidating.
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Deborah Wolfe: And so they were probably running around, like you say, checking out the food storage, ran back to the front door when the gate blew over, and then he probably chased them.
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Deborah Wolfe: So they ran across the road in the middle of the night, probably when there was no traffic.
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Deborah Wolfe: And then they want to come home and the traffic is just not letting them.
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Deborah Wolfe: So I could see them, or he was probably also intimidating them from his house, which is next door.
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Deborah Wolfe: So they were probably too scared to deal with him and too scared to deal with the cars.
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Deborah Wolfe: So there they were stuck all day.
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Deborah Wolfe: So, okay, Karen, is this normal for you?
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Karen Nixon: Yes, it is.
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Karen Nixon: And it is normal when they're frightened not to come out when they're being called by their owners or anybody else.
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Karen Nixon: So I remember having a conversation with you and everybody else, and it goes like this.
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Karen Nixon: We've been calling them and calling them.
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Karen Nixon: They're not here.
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Karen Nixon: They're not around here.
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Karen Nixon: They'd come out.
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Karen Nixon: They'd absolutely come out.
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Karen Nixon: But the reality is when they're frightened, they don't.
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Karen Nixon: They often don't.
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Karen Nixon: I can't say never, but they hide silently because they're frightened.
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Karen Nixon: And it's often another dog that comes by that they break that silence factor or they bark at or they just come running to to say hello.
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Karen Nixon: I think in the case with your dogs, they felt as Halo was closing in, they barked a warning.
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Karen Nixon: I remember that moment, Halo wanted to cross the road and I was shining my flashlight and we could hear those dogs barking and then I saw their eyes in the ditch and there they were.
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Karen Nixon: So it's very normal.
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Deborah Wolfe: It makes me sad just thinking about it.
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Deborah Wolfe: They're these reddish golden retrievers and they're about 40 and 50 pounds, the two of them, brother and sister, and they're so sweet-natured and so adorable.
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Deborah Wolfe: And thinking of them huddled together in the river, you know, this cold water, I just don't like that.
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Deborah Wolfe: But I brought them in, and I didn't make them have a bath or anything like that right away because they were so cold.
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Deborah Wolfe: I just covered them all up and then later gave them a bath, and I have pictures of them on the couch together.
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Deborah Wolfe: And weeks later, their forever homes came, and they're all adopted out, and everybody's good.
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Deborah Wolfe: And that gate is well and truly fixed, but you don't ever know.
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Deborah Wolfe: It's good to have tattoos and ID and microchips and even GPSs on your animals.
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Deborah Wolfe: But if they do get away from you, then okay, so how did you train Halo to do this?
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Deborah Wolfe: You might be listening and thinking, what if my dog or cat does escape?
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Deborah Wolfe: Or my dog's really good at sipping things and really obedient.
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Deborah Wolfe: How do I teach it like Halo so I can help my neighbors?
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Deborah Wolfe: When I see a post on Facebook, okay, how do you do this?
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Karen Nixon: I started her as a puppy.
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Karen Nixon: I had always intended on doing this with her.
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Karen Nixon: And so there was some skill sets that I wanted her to have.
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Karen Nixon: Scent Detection, which is using error sensing to find the source of odor.
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Karen Nixon: Tracking, which is a very precision nose down on the ground.
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Karen Nixon: We took classes for that.
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Karen Nixon: But when you're looking for a lost pet or a lost person, and by pet, it's mostly dogs.
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Karen Nixon: Cats are a completely different technique for the most part.
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Karen Nixon: They do what they call trailing.
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Karen Nixon: So that's a combination of tracking and error sensing to find their target, whether that's a person or a dog.
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Karen Nixon: And you start it quite easily, and really honestly, anybody can train their dog to do this.
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Karen Nixon: You start with somebody running away with the dog watching.
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Karen Nixon: And so they drop something like a sock, and they run, and that really insights the dog to want to chase them.
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Karen Nixon: And they just duck around a corner.
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Karen Nixon: And that's really the baby steps of trailing is you're building that motivation for them to go find the person that's missing.
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Karen Nixon: And you build the motivation by the person running away.
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Karen Nixon: They've dropped the scent article.
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Karen Nixon: And eventually, they don't see the person run away anymore.
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Karen Nixon: They just get presented with the scent article.
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Karen Nixon: And this is such a fun game for them.
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Karen Nixon: And you just eventually build more criteria.
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Karen Nixon: You age the tracks longer.
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Karen Nixon: You make them a little more complicated.
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Karen Nixon: You add distractions.
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Karen Nixon: You add cross tracks.
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Karen Nixon: Off you go.
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Karen Nixon: It's probably about 18 to 24 months to train a dog to do this quite well.
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Deborah Wolfe: Wow, you know what I'm thinking?
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Deborah Wolfe: I'm thinking, as you say this, way back, like a long, long time ago, I posted on YouTube, Deb Wolfe, Pet Expert, how to teach your dog to find your kids in a hide-and-go-seek kind of game.
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Deborah Wolfe: But it turns out if your kid's ever lost, your dog will find your kid if you tell them.
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Deborah Wolfe: The only thing missing from the game is dropping an item that's scented.
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Deborah Wolfe: Everything else, they hide with invisible, and they call the dog, and then they hide a little more in a more difficult way, and then they hide before the dog's there until the dog is truly tracking that particular child.
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Deborah Wolfe: And they start with one child, and then they work till the next one.
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Deborah Wolfe: And so before long, the dog can find all the kids, you know, by name.
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Deborah Wolfe: So all they have to do to modify that, to make it more of a tracking exercise, is have the kid drop something that they've had in their pocket or that they were wearing, like a handkerchief or a sock or whatever.
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Deborah Wolfe: And oh, that's so good.
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Deborah Wolfe: Okay, so that's how you do that, that trailing.
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Deborah Wolfe: What about the other, the tracking?
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Deborah Wolfe: Is that something else, another skill, or is that still the same?
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Karen Nixon: The trailing is a combination of, so if a dog is tracking, they've got their nose down on the ground and they're following the exact path.
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Karen Nixon: But with trailing, they're allowed to cut corners, if you will.
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Karen Nixon: So if the wind direction is coming at them and tells them who they're looking for is immediately to their left, they're not going to follow that long track around to get to their target.
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Karen Nixon: They'll cut corners, if you will.
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Karen Nixon: And the tracking itself is a very precision thing we do.
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Karen Nixon: Most people do it for sport.
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Karen Nixon: It's nose down on the ground following the precise trail, and your dog is looking for articles that have been dropped by the person that has laid that trail.
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Karen Nixon: So gloves, little tiny items, then the dog has to tell you when they found those items.
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Karen Nixon: And usually they're trained to lay down on that item.
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Karen Nixon: So that's a skill that we practice with our instructor Maureen Fielding.
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Karen Nixon: And that's really good.
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Karen Nixon: First of all, it's good fun.
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Karen Nixon: But it's also really good precision work to help your dog learn how to follow the track, what to do when they run out of odor, how to read your dog when they run out of odor, how to circle them to find the outgoing leg.
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Karen Nixon: So it's a really good foundation that plays a part in the trailing.
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Deborah Wolfe: Okay, it sounds like it takes a lot of work.
00:14:47.026 --> 00:14:48.026
Deborah Wolfe: But you were so...
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Deborah Wolfe: I mean, you warned me.
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Deborah Wolfe: You said we don't do this professionally.
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Deborah Wolfe: We don't charge anything.
00:14:51.466 --> 00:14:53.486
Deborah Wolfe: We're just volunteers and we might be able to help.
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Deborah Wolfe: And yet, I mean, you so helped.
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Deborah Wolfe: So we're going to go to a break and come back and talk about more about this.
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Deborah Wolfe: It's just amazing to me that Halo was able to do this.
00:15:02.906 --> 00:15:05.246
Deborah Wolfe: And I want to know the difference between cats and dogs.
00:15:05.266 --> 00:15:07.886
Deborah Wolfe: Stay tuned on Animal Party, Pet Life Radio.
00:15:12.806 --> 00:15:14.506
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00:16:03.326 --> 00:16:04.086
Announcer: Let's Talk Pest.
00:16:04.706 --> 00:16:07.306
Announcer: On Pet Life Radio.
00:16:07.646 --> 00:16:08.526
Announcer: Pet Life Radio.
00:16:20.433 --> 00:16:24.173
Deborah Wolfe: Hello, we're back on Animal Party, Pet Life Radio.
00:16:24.593 --> 00:16:28.153
Deborah Wolfe: So you mentioned it's different when you look for cats.
00:16:28.713 --> 00:16:36.653
Deborah Wolfe: When you look for my dogs, we took a stinky blanket that they'd been in, and we let your dog, Halo, sniff it a lot.
00:16:37.173 --> 00:16:42.733
Deborah Wolfe: And I think we even put it where the trail was leading away from the property once she was all excited.
00:16:42.753 --> 00:16:45.453
Deborah Wolfe: We kind of, but how is it different for cats?
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Karen Nixon: Cats are very difficult to track.
00:16:48.253 --> 00:16:55.193
Karen Nixon: And they cross fences, walk on fences, they go through terrain that we really can't follow a track on.
00:16:55.873 --> 00:17:06.633
Karen Nixon: And when we're looking at cats, say the indoor only cat, we can often get a track straight from their door around the side of their house to the shed in the back.
00:17:06.753 --> 00:17:12.813
Karen Nixon: So sometimes we can follow a track, but most often we're doing what we call an area search.
00:17:12.973 --> 00:17:15.233
Karen Nixon: So we're looking for where the cat is hiding.
00:17:15.613 --> 00:17:22.913
Karen Nixon: Indoor only cats or outdoor access cats that aren't feeling well in hiding or they're trapped in the neighbor's shed.
00:17:23.313 --> 00:17:27.313
Karen Nixon: We don't necessarily need to follow the exact route they took to get there.
00:17:27.993 --> 00:17:29.633
Karen Nixon: We just need to find where they're hiding.
00:17:29.933 --> 00:17:33.313
Karen Nixon: So HALO will do what we call an area search.
00:17:33.953 --> 00:17:37.933
Karen Nixon: Imagine the drug dogs that check vehicles.
00:17:38.193 --> 00:17:41.213
Karen Nixon: They know that there's something in that vehicle by circling it.
00:17:41.893 --> 00:17:43.193
Karen Nixon: So we do that with HALO.
00:17:43.253 --> 00:17:47.113
Karen Nixon: We will go into a yard and we'll basically walk a perimeter.
00:17:47.413 --> 00:17:49.833
Karen Nixon: And she'll be air-sensing for the most part.
00:17:49.993 --> 00:17:51.833
Karen Nixon: If she picks up a track, she'll follow it.
00:17:51.853 --> 00:17:56.313
Karen Nixon: But for the most part, she is air-sensing to find where Kitty is hidden.
00:17:57.113 --> 00:18:05.073
Karen Nixon: And so she's found them under decks, in stacks of tires, in sheds, in garages, in trees.
00:18:05.293 --> 00:18:11.893
Deborah Wolfe: So, okay, so when she finds them, do you go away and they entice the cat out or do they lay a live trap?
00:18:12.073 --> 00:18:13.213
Deborah Wolfe: Like what happens next?
00:18:13.553 --> 00:18:14.413
Karen Nixon: Depends on the Kitty.
00:18:14.873 --> 00:18:19.673
Karen Nixon: If we can reach the Kitty, then the owners will just reach in and take them out.
00:18:19.693 --> 00:18:21.573
Karen Nixon: They can often lure them with some food.
00:18:21.833 --> 00:18:26.193
Karen Nixon: This, of course, is after I've taken Halo away and put her back in the van.
00:18:26.573 --> 00:18:28.873
Karen Nixon: Other times we do have to use a humane trap.
00:18:28.913 --> 00:18:30.653
Karen Nixon: So I'll leave the owner with the trap.
00:18:30.673 --> 00:18:31.753
Karen Nixon: I'll set it up for them.
00:18:32.293 --> 00:18:35.573
Karen Nixon: Leave a camera so that they know when their cat is in the trap.
00:18:35.933 --> 00:18:37.093
Deborah Wolfe: Oh, that's so interesting.
00:18:37.393 --> 00:18:42.713
Karen Nixon: Yeah, most of them come out, but some of them are so deep in there and not ready to come out.
00:18:42.773 --> 00:18:46.753
Karen Nixon: We have to problem solve once we took the boards off a deck to get them out.
00:18:47.233 --> 00:18:48.913
Karen Nixon: Other times, yeah.
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Karen Nixon: Oh, that was Gumpher.
00:18:51.473 --> 00:18:54.973
Karen Nixon: He was so deep under that deck that we just pulled the boards off.
00:18:54.993 --> 00:18:58.153
Karen Nixon: Well, the family did, and we're able to retrieve him that way.
00:18:58.393 --> 00:19:04.913
Deborah Wolfe: So we have been talking to Karen and Halo about Search and Rescue for Lost Pets.
00:19:05.353 --> 00:19:10.573
Deborah Wolfe: And I'm gonna ask her to come back and do another show because we've run out of time, everybody, but it's just too good.
00:19:11.053 --> 00:19:13.773
Deborah Wolfe: All right, so thank you so much, Karen Nixon.
00:19:13.793 --> 00:19:15.153
Deborah Wolfe: Thank you for coming to the show.
00:19:15.613 --> 00:19:25.493
Deborah Wolfe: I know we're gonna post some pictures of Halo, of course, and you, and maybe some bio information, and maybe some links to how people can train their own dogs this way.
00:19:25.793 --> 00:19:26.633
Deborah Wolfe: That would be great.
00:19:26.893 --> 00:19:31.093
Deborah Wolfe: All right, everybody, from me, Deb Wolfe, and Animal Party, and Pet Life Radio.
00:19:31.373 --> 00:19:33.673
Deborah Wolfe: And Karen Nixon, be good to your animals.
00:19:34.873 --> 00:19:40.293
Announcer: Let's Talk Pets, every week on demand, only on petliferadio.com.