09/08/2026
***We are not a pet recovery team. This was a special case. Please do not contact VonWren for pet locating services. ***
Late Saturday
I get a call, dog took off around 8:30pm after some big booms and there have been no signs, yup I’ll be there. Make the long trip deeper into Appalachia rolling in right around 12am. Hank gets ahold of the scent article and after some big circles we are off! Half way into tracking this dog we get a call that one of the other dogs took off in all the commotion of trying to find the first dog. For the sake of this story we will call these dogs Dog A and Dog B. We are already like a mile into tracking Dog A so we press on. We leave a dirt road for a tractor path around a field when Hank starts tipping me off he’s really getting on to something. With a head snap he makes a 90 and kicks it up into next gear. Couple of bays tells me he’s hot on it we are close! We take off down a straight then he tries a hard left into another field but I stop him quickly to shine my head lamp down into the opening since he’s carrying on so much. I can see a fresh track through the dew covered tall grass and right in the wood line almost out of my lights reach is Dog A’s eyes and collar reflector glowing! But Hank’s baying is startling Dog A, so we pull back and the owner heads down. It’s dark, the field is tall and fog has settled in. We can barely see him and he couldn’t make it out it was his owner I guess. Dog A gets frightened and disappears. Scared dogs do strange things. We back the whole way out. Make note of where Dog A was and decide to come back in the morning. We take the extra long way out in hopes of running into Dog B. No luck there. I pack out and return home at 4am.
Sunday morning
I get ahold of MJ’s Bloodhounds for help. She’s got two good blood hounds and one of them won’t bay a pet search and scare a dog off. We meet up with each other at the home site and the owner takes Milissa and her Creedmoor to where we jumped Dog A. They have Dog A in a matter of minutes. In the mean time Hank hits Dog B’s scent article and away we go. Hank took me 3/4 a mile through a field and across a road down into the woods before we had any sign of Dog B, a little bedded down area. At this point Milissa also has Creed on Dog B’s trail. After the bed we dropped down a steep incline with heavy vegetation to a creek. One single paw print in the creek bed!! I mark it. Another 400+ yards and we are at another set of paw prints, mark it. 75ish yards later out of the creek and up a dirt road we pass another paw print, mark that. I didn’t know at the time but Creed had picked up the scent that was in the creek way from the top road at another point and dropped in ahead of us. We ended up at the same place 1.45 miles from the scent article and confirmed with each other all the details. Hank and Creed were spent at this point as it was getting really hot out so we put them up and Milissa brought out a fresh dog Henley to where I marked the 2nd of three prints and started him from there. He tracked really hot and pushed far past where the other two dogs got hung up. He bayed a good bit and coupled with how hot he was tracking we decided we were most likely pushing Dog B so we called off the search. The good thing was that it seemed we were circling him back into the big property at least.
11am Monday
DOG B IS REUNITED WITH HIS MOMMA!! Alive and well!! Found right where all three hounds were focused at one point. We bumped him out a little but he returned and his owner was able to get him this morning. When in doubt, back out! Just like we did with both these dogs, made recovery possible.
Good boys Hank, Creedmoor & Henley.
Special thank you to MJ’s Bloodhounds.
