Komu's First Search, for Pasha

Komu fell asleep in this position after his first real search.

Pasha is a young Balinese indoor-only cat who escaped a house in Algona. I had arranged to bring Karma, but found out at the last minute that she was not available because of a communication error. Komu is not certified yet, but he obviously knows how to find cats. I decided to take him and tell Pasha's owners there would be no charge for the search.

Komu was very anxious to work. A black cat and a white cat were in the owners' yard, although they moved off well before Komu reached them. He was pretty excited about the scent they left behind. We soon encountered a big dog and a little dog, and Komu behaved around both of them. The fourth yard we searched had a cat (not Pasha) sitting on a fence. Komu zeroed in on the scent, and the cat ran off when Komu looked up at him. Komu was very excited and got his cheese reward. He also pushed, harder than I would like.

  We worked our way around the block. Komu was always willing and never difficult.   At about the eighth yard we searched, Komu detected a cat on the other side of a fence. I didn't see the cat when I looked over the fence. To make sure there was no doubt about Komu's find, he jumped and pushed on the fence, hard. If it had been a little rotten, he would have knocked it down. An owner went to the other side of the fence and the brambles and saw that there was a cat in that yard, though not Pasha.

We continued searching about ten more yards. Then we went across Chicago Ave to the blueberry farm and searched. We found coyote scat, and before long we found a pack of coyotes. They had made themselves a home in the tall grass under the blueberry bushes. It had rooms and passages where they had flattened the grass. It was like a mansion with dozens of rooms. Komu was very excited about all the smells in there. Komu could wander through the coyote mansion easily, but I had to stoop or crawl, making the searching difficult and slow.

Although we did not find Pasha, Komu did find two cats and performed very well.  We Searched for a little over two hours, and Komu was ready and willing to keep searching.