Soon after Heidi arrived on the scene, the 2-year-old mixed German shepherd and black Labrador tracking master was on to 9-year-old Max's scent quickly.

Max, a black and white mix breed, had been lost for hours.

He'd run away from his home on Thomas Avenue in Arbutus and set off on an unknown course through the neighborhood.

Max's owner Rich Floyd had typed "lost dog" into Google, and through some searching found Anne Wills, a fellow Arbutus resident and Heidi's owner.

Not long after, Wills was in Floyd's front yard with Heidi, in an orange "Search and Rescue" jacket.

"It was like an angel when I saw her," Floyd said of Wills.

Wills is the founder of Dogs Finding Dogs, a company of seven volunteer trackers who help find lost pets using trained animals like Heidi.

While many for-profit tracking companies charge "hundreds of dollars to take you on a nature hike," Wills said, her company charges a minimal fee -- part of which it donates to organizations such as the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Wills got into tracking after buying Heidi, who was extremely energetic as a puppy.

"She was so psycho when she was a puppy," Wills said.

Looking for an outlet for that energy, Wills took 5-month-old Heidi to Arrowwood Shepherds, Inc., a dog training facility in Woodbine in Howard County.

Wills and the company's owner, Wesley Jenson, realized Heidi had a great tracking nose, and her training began to become a search and rescue dog, Wills said.

That training is intense.

Wills spent five hours each Saturday coaching Heidi through different tasks.

"Our dogs have training equivalent to or better than what the police dogs get," Wills said

"It's hard-core," she said.

Wills' fellow volunteers with Dogs Finding Dogs are all trained at Jenson's training facility as well.

Thanks to her training, Wills and Heidi even have an official citation from the governor commending the pair for helping police officers track a man who stole a purse from a woman at a PetSmart.

Wills and Heidi just happened to be on the scene when the crime occurred, and Wills volunteered Heidi to help officers locate the thief in a patch of woods and recover the knife he'd used to threaten the robbery victim.

The crime-fighting recognition was nice, Wills said, but it's not why she does the work.

She does it to reunite families with their pets -- which she and the other volunteers have done almost 50 times since they started in August.

They've found about 30 dogs, about a dozen cats and even a pony.

"The point is to get the animal back," Wills said. "Who cares how it happens?"

After she and Heidi got to the Floyds' house and Heidi picked up Max's scent, it was off to the races.

Heidi set off down the street and into a neighbor's backyard.

"You've got to just trust the dog knows where she's going," Wills said.

Once in the yard, Heidi pulled Wills to an embankment that drops about a dozen feet into what was then a frozen creek below.

"You could see where (Max) had crashed through the ice," Wills said.

Heidi wanted to follow the track right over the embankment, but Wills held the 82-pound animal back.

Instead, she and Floyd made their way to the other side of the creek.

From there, they could tell that Max, soaking wet with temperatures near freezing, had scurried along the creek until he found a way up the embankment on the far side of the creek.

Heidi tracked Max's scent through a maze of streets, until, a worn out Rich Floyd called off the search.

While Heidi hadn't found the missing animal, she had given Floyd important clues on the direction Max had gone.

Floyd, his wife, Wendy, and their two sons, Ricky, 8, and Ethan, 6, came back and posted almost 200 fliers around the neighborhood and along the streets Heidi had tracked.

The signs said that the "family is devastated."

A few days later, a neighborhood couple called. They'd found Max curled up under a grill cover in their backyard. All his fur was frozen, and he was shivering.

"He was a popsicle," Wills said.

The couple gave Max a bath and took care of him until they saw one of the Floyds' signs.

Today Max is back with his family, to the relief of Ricky and Ethan, their parents said.

The family credits Heidi and Wills with giving them hope and a lead when there seemed to be none.

For Wills, it was just another day on the job, she said.

To contact Wills for help finding a missing pet, call 410-908-6374 or go to www.dogsfindingdogs.com.

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user comments (1)

user coleenb says...

What a heartwarming story! A winner for everyone. Working dogs like Heidi love the training and the opportunity to be out among people. Orange County Pet News

Posted 7:48 AM, 04.18.09

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