Bogi is a seven year old Toy Fox Terrier. He is not wearing a collar, but he is microchipped. He lives on a large farm in Brentwood and is allowed loose on the property. One day he was gone from the property. There are known predators like coyotes and foxes that live in the area. He had been missing for a few days when I was called. My guess is that he was chased from the property and ended up several miles away very lost.
There was a sighting of Bogi at 8 AM at a water channel over eight miles in Knightsen, an unincorporated part of East Contra Costa County. When I got to the spot nearby that afternoon to start the search, I was told that there was another sighting of Bogi about a mile away near a set of stores on highway. We went there and checked the area. We did find a track going up and down the main street and up and down a dead end street nearby and then back down the main street past stores and a bus stop. While we were there, we were told that Bogi was spotted just back at one of the local stores just a minute or two behind us. I thought it was odd since we were right there, and we were confused how he could be there and we didn't see him, and that he would not respond to his people being right there calling him.
We went back there and looked all around the area, but could not find him. Another person in the store said she saw Bogi going past her store, past a truck and then that was the last she could see from inside the store. I had the dogs check the whole area again for scent, and they both went in the original direction before this current sighting. However, if the most recent sighting was Bogi, and he had been in the track that the dogs indicated, he would have run right past me and a man sitting at a bus stop. He acknowledged he was sitting there for 15 minutes and never saw a dog run past him. What this means, and I described all this in detail to Bogi's person, who was with me, that the most recent sighting was not Bogi, but, instead, a very good look-alike. However, since we did find Bogi's scent in the area, this means he was in the area, but we don't know a time frame. Bogi's person did receive a call from a man who thought he saw Bogi that morning and over the weekend. The dogs could have been following the scent from over the weekend, which was older than the sighting on Monday morning.
What we decided to do was to go back to the 8 AM sighting on the previous Monday and check that area to see if Bogi's scent was there, since we do have a specific timeframe from which to work from.
We went there and did find Bogi's scent on the canal and throughout several neighborhoods and then back out onto the canal. At this point, Bogi's person stopped the search at the four hour minimum, even though I suggested ways to check for scent on the canal by the use of a car. The temperature that day was over 95 degrees and it was certainly impeding our ability to search for long periods of time. However, if we were to go into a car and check spots along the canal we could see if Bogi's scent was along the canal and follow it from there. I told her I had used that technique many times successfully when we had certain things preventing us from walking the track straight. She decided to not continue the track and to keep looking.
I received an email from Bogi's person the next day and she said that they were able to find the dog that appeared to look like Bogi. She wanted to know why my dogs had indicated Bogi's scent when it was not him being seen. I explained that Bogi had been in those areas, which is why his scent was there. I said it was a coincidence that a look-alike was also there. It is not uncommon for similar looking dogs to appear in the same area. I told her I had seen it before on other searches. Besides, my dogs did not follow the track of the look-alike at the gas station, which indicated that they were not following that dog, but were following Bogi's scent. I told her that scent was as unique as a fingerprint, and that my dogs would not follow the look-alike since they were following Bogi's scent, which we got directly from his bed. It would be impossible for them to follow anything but Bogi's scent.
This track is when we were at the area of all the stores and when we got the sighting at the gas station, which proved to be a look-alike, even though we did find Bogi's scent in the area, but the timeframe was unknown.
Track #1:
View Bogi 1 in a larger map
Total Distance: 5.62 km (3.5 mi)
Total Time: 1:12:04
Moving Time: 41:03
Average Pace: 12.82 min/km (20.6 min/mi)
Average Moving Pace: 7.30 min/km (11.8 min/mi)
Min Pace: 1.00 min/km (1.6 min/mi)
Min Elevation: -24 m (-79 ft)
Max Elevation: 5 m (15 ft)
Elevation Gain: 182 m (598 ft)
Max Grade: 1 %
Min Grade: -1 %
Recorded: Tue Sep 28 12:01:58 PDT 2010
This track is back out on the canal, following a sighting from Monday at 8 AM. I had forgotten to turn off the tracking software at the end of the search, so it followed me all the way back to Livermore. The actual track of Bogi's is at the top of the track off of Delta Road, while still in the Knightsen/Brentwood area.
Track #2:
View Bogi 2 in a larger map
Total Distance: 51.98 km (32.3 mi)
Total Time: 3:52:25
Moving Time: 2:00:36
Average Pace: 4.47 min/km (7.2 min/mi)
Average Moving Pace: 2.32 min/km (3.7 min/mi)
Min Pace: 0.52 min/km (0.8 min/mi)
Min Elevation: -30 m (-98 ft)
Max Elevation: 275 m (901 ft)
Elevation Gain: 748 m (2453 ft)
Max Grade: 7 %
Min Grade: -7 %
Recorded: Tue Sep 28 13:33:26 PDT 2010
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