I'm raising money to fund training so that my dog, Scout, and I will be qualified to find lost dogs by trailing their scent. We'll be working with experienced trainers in the Missing Animal Response Network, who have prepared many teams that are now active across the country.

I'm a Case Manager for the Retrievers Volunteer Lost Dog Team, and once Scout and I are trained, we'll be able to use a tracking dog to help with the tough cases. In fact, we will be the first formally trained Missing Animal Response (MAR) Search K9 in the State of Minnesota!

Scout is six months old, and she's going to make a great search dog! She's 32% Bloodhound, 14% Labrador Retriever, 7% German Shepherd, and a lot of other breeds in the mix. Already she's shown me that she has an excellent nose.

Our training will include the use of “target dogs,” beginning command/cues (“take scent,” “search!” and “which way?”) as well as teaching Scout “puppy runaway games” and how to transition her to no longer seeing the target dog. Plus, beginner trails, intermediate trailing, advanced exercises, scent discrimination exercises, aging trails, negative trails, and decomposition training.

It's a rigorous program aimed to ensure that Scout will be 100% reliable. Becoming "mission-ready" could take up to 18 months.

So I'm asking for donations to fund our training. We have needed a trailing dog SO MANY TIMES on Retrievers cases. With your help, we will finally be able to use the genius of a dog's nose to help bring more lost dogs home.