looked there were clothes, presents, wrapping paper, even up in the trees. I thought we were looking for a deceased dog.” As soon as Bravo scented the wrecked vehicle, he went into work mode. “Bravo went straight to the highway and started tracking down it, then crossed eight lanes of traffic to get across the highway, and that is where we eventually had our first sightings of Rufus,” Brown says. “Dogs lost in unfamiliar places almost always work their way back to the last place they saw their owner, and Rufus was trying to work his way back to the wreck site.” Concentrating in the area that Bravo indicated, Brown, Ray’s girlfriend, Elizabeth Speidel, and a team of friends and volunteers searched day and night and caught glimpses of the Newfie. Brown coached them in calming signals because lost dogs are often so traumatized that they will stay away even from familiar people. Signals can include singing to your pet and sitting on the ground while pretending to eat treats. “In the end, Elizabeth said she could hear Rufus circling her, then his circle getting smaller, and then bam! He pounced on her,” Brown says. Rufus was taken to an emergency veterinary office where he was found to be unharmed, other than some bruising, and was reunited with Ray in the hospital.
in late 2019. Since then, Brown and her terrier have helped more than 300 pets return home. But Bravo did not start life as a great search-dog candidate. Brown, who has been showing dogs since she was 6, bred his litter and liked the puppies so much that she kept two—Bravo and his brother, Buddha. She hoped to earn Bravo’s conformation championship and compete in dock diving and other sports. But Brown reevaluated his future after experiencing a change in his personality as a young adult. The littermates were best buddies until they turned 3 years old and started having squabbles. Short skirmishes escalated until the two had serious fights, usually with Bravo on the losing end. Bravo became more fearful and reactive not only of the dogs in his household, but all dogs and even people, Brown recalls. “I started walking Bravo by himself, but when he would see a person or a dog coming from a different direction, even in the distance, he would bark like a maniac. He would even bite me. There was no one home when that happened,” she says. “I was afraid, and I did a lot of crying, trying to figure out what to do with him. I thought I might have to put him down. I could not place him, as I could not trust him with dogs, adults, or kids.” Looking for Work Brown did not want to give up on Bravo and struggled for a solution. “Our relationship was hampered and needed something to mend it,” she says. “I did not trust him. I always heard that dogs need a job, and I thought maybe that’s what Bravo needed.” She spotted a news story about a couple who hired a pet detective to find their missing Labrador Retriever. “I thought, ‘What is that?’ It was intriguing to me. I began researching and discovered Missing Animal
Response Network.” Former police officer Kat Albrecht- Thiessen created MARN 25 years ago after her mantrailing Bloodhound dug out of her fenced yard and disappeared. She asked a friend with a Golden Retriever, trained to track people, to help. “We knew that her dog understood smell the pillowcase, find the missing person, but we didn’t know if she would understand, smell the stinky Bloodhound blanket and find the stinky dog! But she did! The Golden tracked down my Bloodhound in 20 minutes, and my life was changed forever. Since then, I’ve trained hundreds of people and many search dogs to find lost pets.” Brown enrolled Bravo in a 10-week MARN course. She only wanted to help Bravo; she had no intention of tracking pets in the future. When the application asked if he liked other dogs and people, she fibbed, “Yes.” Students submit their homework via video for instructors to review. The training involves teaching a dog to follow a scent trail. A scent article might be a dog’s brush, bed, or leash— anything that smells like the missing pet. Then students enlist the help of friends who hide their pets for practice. “From the very first class, I noticed a difference in Bravo. He seemed to
Losing the Fear The Rufus case was Bravo’s first job
Missouri Pet Breeders Association | Page 26
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