I love my job. It’s like my favorite thing in the world. Second to eating breakfast, and maybe sitting at Bradley’s feet while he pets my ears. Also when Bradley rides his bike, and has me run alongside him. That’s pretty good, too.
Oh – the job. We practice almost every week-end, when he takes me out to the training ground, and I have to find the hip-bone in the weeds…or perhaps a sack of blood placed at the base of a tree. At those times, it is all happiness and games, and when I find the target, Bradley gives me a treat, and tells me how good I am.
It was autumn time, when the air is full of dusty, musty scents and the ground is covered with crunching leaves, and my fur starts growing thicker against the colder outside air. Bradley drove us out to a job, and opened the door to let me out. I jumped to the pavement, my tail waving my excitement.
“Stay,” said Bradley, and knelt beside me.
I waited while he adjusted my vest, and raised my nose to the surroundings. The breeze ruffled my fur just a little, while pine, vegetation, gasoline, sweat, damp leaves, and more painted themselves across my nose.
“Good girl,” said Bradley, and stood up, giving my leash a little tug. “Heel.”
I trotted beside him, tongue lolling a bit, to suck up all those smells. Forest surrounded us, with the hills rising on two sides, reflecting sounds and wind down to us. We approached a group of people – perhaps fifteen or so. I recognized a few of them…they were friends of Bradley: Whiskey-breath, and Bacon-treats. I gave a wag or two of greeting.
Bacon-treats is the partner of Zeus. Zeus is a hound, and we sniffed nose to nose, very briefly, just to say ‘hello.’ Of course, then we each sat by our partners, because this was a job.
Bradley greeted the people, and they talked for a minute or two. Their voices sounded…strange. I don’t pretend to understand everything about human communication, but I could tell this was not a training test. It was not a game. Bradley was firm, an alpha in front of his pack, but some of the others were like puppies without their mothers.
A woman was there, and spoke with Bradley. She smelled of old fruit and grease…probably because her face was the color of paint, not the color of skin. She was the saddest of all. Her voice was quiet and calm, yes, but underneath it was howling and tears.
“Yes,” said Bradley. “After five days, it doesn’t look good. But we’ll do our best, and we won’t give up hope.”
He reached down and rubbed my head.
The woman held a piece of paper with a boy’s face on it. She looked down at the paper, and the sadness and tension inside her seemed to ripple out to everyone else.
“Are we ready?” asked Bradley – and again, he sounded like the firm alpha, like he had everything under control.
I stood up and wagged my tail to show I was ready.
Another car drove into the parking lot, and Chocolate got out with her partner. Chocolate is a lab, and she tries her best, but she is still very young, and likes birds very much.
“Come,” said Bradley, and led me with the others toward the trees. Chocolate was on one side of us, and Zeus on the other, and the people formed up in a line, up and down, to head into the trees together.
Bradley took off my leash, and said, “Daisy – search!”
I stuck my nose out, craning my neck. A thousand different odors washed over me, but I focused. Tangy, smoky, sweaty – Mr. Whiskey-breath was off to our left. He had not been drinking today, probably because he was on the job.
Spicy, savory…the pine trees had dropped thousands of needles, and every step released a bit of their sap to the air. Foul, soiled…a squirrel had died, somewhere to the right. That was not important…only human smells mattered.
I forged on into the forest, step by step, sniff by sniff. The ground rose before us, with occasional boulders to climb and logs to crawl around. All the while, Bradley stayed right behind me, his boots crunching sticks and leaves, his breathing quickening when we had to climb a steeper slope.
Time wore on, but I do not give up. I have never given up. Sometimes, Bradley calls me, and we go home without finding any blood or bones. But I do not give up. Even if something is buried under several feet of dirt, I can find it. I am very good at my job.
The ground beneath us was damp with a rain that had passed through the day before. Scents were heightened – but that made it harder, in some ways, because everything was more so. I paused on top of a boulder, nose in the air, sorting through everything the breeze brought me. Earthy, salty, spicy, sweet…the forest took shape around me.
“Hey!” called Chocolate. “Something died!”
I knew something died. I’m not an idiot. But it was just a rabbit. That wasn’t important. Several people snapped and crunched their way through the underbrush toward Chocolate, but I knew there was nothing to look at. Rabbits do not matter.
A chipmunk darted across my path and under some bushes. He did not matter. A bird cawed high above us, but it did not matter, either. Only the search mattered. Only finding the target would make Bradley happy.
He grunted behind me as he climbed up a slope. He slipped in mud and snarled, before catching himself and giving a sigh that said, ‘It’s all right.’
But…everything was not all right. We had to find the target. The lady who smelled of old fruit had a lost puppy locked up in her chest, and although Bradley tried not to act like it, he felt it was there, too. Like times when I am searching, and he loses sight of me, and doesn’t know where I am… At those times, he calls my name, and he is anxious and scared and a little angry in his voice. I hate those times. To make Bradley happy…that is everything.
I stopped again. Bushes twisted their branches together across our way. Rotten berries, and wormy logs, and ancient, ancient droppings lay there, buried underneath.
Bradley came up behind me, breathing like he does when he rides his bike.
“I don’t think he could have come through here, girl,” he said. “It’s too thick. Unless…”
He didn’t go on, so I couldn’t guess what he meant. But I still hadn’t found the target.
I found a place of thinner branches, and pushed my way through. On, on, until the light changed, and I stopped for a drink at a little stream that ran down the hill. Bradley took out a crinkle-wrapper, but it was a treat for him, not for me. I still had work to do.
Something was strange about that stream. Something tasted human about it, like when I lick Bradley’s face. I turned my nose this way and that. Something…something was not right. I smelled no bones, no bear cache. Maybe…blood. Maybe just a little bit of…fresh blood. Human blood. Human snot.
I forced my tired legs, and climbed up the rocks, following the stream. Something was in the water, that was for sure. But still, the breeze was loaded with too many other things.
The sounds of Bradley grew fainter behind me, but I pressed on. Up ahead, a pile of rocks blocked the path. The stream flowed down the face of a rock that stood straight up, higher than Bradley’s head – but there was also a hole beside the water…a crevice where two rocks leaned together. Something rustled inside that crevice…something that sounded like clothes and smelled like child.
I sprinted the last few yards, and dropped to a crouch to crawl into the hole. Inside, sheltered by the rocks, was a spot a little warmer and drier than the rest. Yes! There was fresh blood, here (but not very much), and tears, and mucus, and even urine – all the human fluids! – and at the center of them, a warm little bundle that rustled in clothes and whimpered like a puppy when he heard me coming. A human child.
He smelled like the lady of old fruit and grease. He didn’t smell like old fruit, and he didn’t smell like grease, but he smelled like something else…like underneath all of that, the lady had another smell that she was trying to cover up…like her true smell was a bone she had buried in a safe place. But this boy matched that smell.
I snuffled the child, and licked his arm. Sure enough, he had a scratch, sweet with blood, but it wasn’t very big. He burbled at me, again, but it was only sadness and fear. He was not sick…I know the taste of sickness-mucus. Bradley was sick and lay on the coach for many days. When I licked his face, he pushed me away, and didn’t even get up to feed me. Instead, he ripped open a plastic corpse of food on the linoleum and I fed myself, eating and puking and eating and puking as I desired. Bradley was very angry about the puking when he got well, which I never completely understood. Why else did he give me the plastic corpse if not so he would have company?
Where was I? Ah, yes. The child. He felt my face, and I licked his hands, and then he grabbed my ears and cried some more. I wasn’t completely happy to have his tears and snot all rubbed in my fur, but he was just a puppy after all…and trembling with weakness. I forgave him. The poor thing had not eaten in some time, and had obviously been frightened for a while.
“Daisy!”
Bradley was calling. I am supposed to sit by a corpse when I find it. But this was not a corpse. Did it still count as a target? Would Bradley be happy?
“Daisy! Come!”
I could not come. I had this child. He had his arms around my neck, and his face against one of my ears. What could I do?
“Bradley,” I shouted. “You come to me!”
“Daisy! Come here!”
I couldn’t come. What could I do?
“I’m in here!” I shouted again. “Come to me!”
The child called out, too. His voice was raspy with thirst, and his lungs weak with the emptiness inside, but he called out all the same.
The little draft of air where the opening was stopped, and then I heard Bradley’s voice inside the rocks with us. “Hello? Who’s there?”
I have never been a mother, never had the opportunity, but something maternal awakened in me, and I fastened my jaws around the boy’s shoulder. Crawling backwards, I pulled him down, towards Bradley. The boy clung to my vest, crawling after me. And then Bradley got out of the way, and I crawled backward out of the crevice, and watched Bradley reach in, and pull the boy out into his arms.
“It’s all right,” said Bradley. “You’re safe, now. What’s your name?”
He sat down on a boulder and set the boy on his knees, while the boy whimpered like a puppy crawling into the cover of its mother. Bradley stroked his head, and got out a bottle of his exercise-drink, and a crinkly-wrapper treat, and fed them to the boy.
He got on his radio that chirps and crackles, and said, “Guys, you’ll never believe what I just found. About twenty degrees north-east, you should find a stream, about a yard across. Follow that up about a hundred yards, and you should see an outcrop.”
The radio talked back to him for a moment.
“Guys,” said Bradley. “It’s Davie Moss. I’ve got him right here, and he’s alive! We’ve got a recovery on our hands, boys. Get in here, and we’ll get him home.”
If I could only express what his voice sounded like. I tried to sit like a dignified dog, but my tail was thrashing the ground in expressions of celebration. Bradley’s voice was full of that celebration, as if a thrashing tail could have a voice. I could hardly contain myself.
Bradley reached in his backpack again, and pulled out a very special plastic bag. He opened it, and tossed me a treat – one of the chewy, bacon treats just like Mr. Bacon-treats gives us. Zeus gets them all the time, but I only get them for special occasions.
Bradley held the bag out for the boy, and the boy held a treat out to me. I ate it right out of his hand, and he giggled. Finally, his voice was starting to wag. His breathing was more like normal breathing now, not shallow and tense. He had some more of Bradley’s exercise drink, and when he spoke again, his voice had lost the raspy sound.
I flicked my ears around to capture the sound of boots cracking sticks. Coming up the hill below us, two men came into view. One of them was Mr. Whiskey-breath.
They called out to Bradley and the child, and their voices also rang with joy. They almost bounced over the rocks toward us, their whole bodies tails proclaiming celebration.
Never had a job ended like this. Bradley is always happy with me, of course, and I always get my treat, when I lead him to a skull, or a chewed hand, or a splash of blood. That is the job, and Bradley is glad I do it. But this was different.
They crowded around the boy, and barked into the radio, sharing their joy with the partners we couldn’t see. At length, they shared backpacks around, and Bradley lifted him up to his friend’s back.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s get you back to your mom.”
The boy chirped and chattered – I suppose like a puppy coming home after a full day of play – and they headed down the hill, going slowly and carefully over the wet rocks with the man’s two feet.
Bradley knelt beside me and hugged my neck. “Good girl, Daisy,” he said. “Good girl.”
I like my job. I’m very good at it. But this day was my favorite. Maybe I’ll never really understand why, but I savor the way Bradley spoke to me…the way he sounded really, truly, unbelieveabley happy.
For further study:
Cadaver Dog Training, Western Carolina University
K9 SAR [canine search-and-rescue]: What’s Involved with Getting Involved:
See how cadaver dogs are trained to help investigators solve cases:
14 Dog Breeds With a Nose for Sniffing Out Crime
Wilderness Search and Rescue Dogs:Wilderness Search and Rescue Dogs: A Day in the Life:
