In the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, Susannah Charleson
clipped a photo from the newspaper: an exhausted canine handler,
face buried in the fur of his search-and-rescue dog. A dog lover
and pilot with search experience herself, Susannah was so moved by
the image that she decided to volunteer with a local canine team
and soon discovered firsthand the long hours, nonexistent pay, and
often heart-wrenching results they face.
Still she felt the call, and once she qualified
to train a dog of her own, she adopted Puzzle, a strong, bright
Golden Retriever puppy who exhibited unique aptitudes as a working
dog but who was less interested in the role of compliant house pet.
Puzzle’s willfulness and high drive, both assets in the field,
challenged even Susannah, who had raised dogs for years.
Scent of the Missing is the story of Susannah
and Puzzle’s adventures together and of the close relationship they
forge as they search for the lost—a teen gone missing, an
Alzheimer’s patient wandering in the cold, signs of the crew amid
the debris of the space shuttle Columbia disaster. From the
earliest air-scent lessons to her final mastery of whole-body
dialog, Puzzle emerges as a fully collaborative partner in a noble
enterprise that unfolds across the forests, plains, and cityscapes
of the Southwest. Along the way Susannah and Puzzle learn to read
the clues in the field, and in each other, to accomplish together
the critical work neither could do alone and to unravel the mystery
of the human/canine bond.
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