The Possibility Dogs
Page 32
The sheriff shakes his head. “Don’t have anywhere else for anybody.” Then he adds, “This search is going to be a long one. Guess you folks can go home. We’ll call you back if we get something for the dogs.”
We stand a moment. He gazes along the rise to the motionless group of volunteers. Below us, another vehicle has pulled up and parked. The car doors slam, thunk, and—slower—thunk. The sheriff turns.
“Right,” he says. “I’ll go tell the parents.”
He walks down the path, and they walk up toward him. As they near, I watch the sheriff stand a little straighter. The father, too, lifts his head and squares his shoulders and pulls his wife to his hip as they climb. And in that moment before they connect, on day thirteen of a search for a missing local girl, I wonder how they can bear the unknowing, what these parents most wish for—words that leave the door open or words that press the door closed.
Our cars are loaded for the long drive home, and the dogs are having a last romp in a small park along a stream. Two of the local volunteers on today’s search stand with us beneath the shade of a pecan tree. One is about to drive back to her college for summer classes. The other has had a quick shower and will head another direction to her restaurant shift miles away.
One asks what we think the dogs know about this search. Do they feel what we feel? Does the search continue to trouble them, as we humans are troubled?
Fleta shakes her head, pointing out that from the dogs’ perspectives, this search was successful. They were asked to do a job: find the missing girl or indicate definitively she’s not here, and they did. Apart from three vagrants in a tent city, no one living or dead was there to be found. And after the day’s sectors were done, volunteers hid so the dogs could find them, a quick and upbeat conclusion to a hard workday, a game that fools no one but keeps motivation high. These dogs are all praise-hounds. They played along, finding and grinning and capering.
No, Fleta suggests. There are exceptions, but usually the dogs let go of a day’s search better than we do. We trust them to do their jobs, and they trust us to tell them they have done it well. And when we tell them, they believe us.
I watch them play. Common goals aside, these dogs are complete individuals in the field. I have searched beside Hunter’s intensity, Saber’s calm authority, and Buster’s bounding accuracy. Even this evening’s pleasure they pursue in different ways. The German Shepherd noses for critters in the brush, while the Lab snaps at minnows in shallow water, trying to catch them. We tease him, and Buster raises his head with muzzle dripping, looking fusty and bemused, but he grins at the sound of his name and tries for fish again. The beautiful Collie, Saber—much-admired and he knows it—rolls ungracefully in the grass, groaning unnh-unnnh-unnhhhhh-mmmmmmm. His white ruff is streaked with green when he gets up, and his coat splays every which way. He is thoroughly happy to be such a mess. “Brickhead,” says Fleta, hugging him as he nuzzles her ear. “Doofus.”
The Border Collie brings every one of us his ball. Hoss is a dog of great charm and is completely tone-deaf to rejection. It’s time to leave, but he is persuasive. We throw and throw and throw again. “Fetch therapy” we call it, and it works. The local volunteers leave laughing, Hoss still petitioning them with his ball in his mouth all the way to their cars.
As we head out, I wonder what my own dog will bring to the work, to the team, and to me. I like the thought of a long drive home with a Golden snoring belly-up in the back of the car: a good dog who has worked well. A partner. A friend. After a search like this one, that companionship must take away a little of the ache.
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About the Author
SUSANNAH CHARLESON is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Scent of the Missing, as well as a flight instructor, service dog trainer, and canine search-and-rescue team member, who most recently began a non-profit organization called The Possibility Dogs, which rescues, trains, and places dogs with people suffering “unseen” disabilities. She lives with her search partner, Puzzle, a golden retriever certified for the recovery of missing persons, her service dog partner-in-training, Jake Piper, a German shepherd-pit bull-poodle mix, as well as a rabble of pomeranians, a chihuahua-cairn terrier mix, and two cats.