Bay was initially raised by an owner in Utah, but when her owner’s home situation changed, they decided to surrender Bay to the Tooele City Animal Shelter. During a visit to the shelter, an SDF canine recruiter noticed Bay’s great temperament and strong toy drive and asked to bring her out to one of the shelter’s play yards to interact with her more. When the recruiter entered the play yard for the meet and greet, Bay could hardly contain her excitement—she was eager to engage and play, and the recruiter knew he had found a potential candidate!
Bay hopped on the Four-Legged Kids Bus and headed west to begin her new life in California, and before long, arrived at SDF’s campus. She passed her performance screening with flying colors, with trainers noting her tremendous potential and insatiable desire to work. She seemed to be a perfect fit!
Unfortunately, before she could officially join our search program, her medical screening revealed elbow dysplasia, indicating that a high-impact career like disaster search wouldn’t be in her best interest. In the short time she’d had been at SDF, Bay had fallen head over heels in love with the search game so it was clear to her trainers that she LOVED to work. So, with Bay’s elbow condition in mind, we began looking for alternative placements, hoping to find a low-impact career she loved that was gentler on her joints.
In preparation for her new path, Bay received arthroscopic surgery to treat her elbow condition. She was fostered by an SDF staff member who took excellent care of her while she healed, and she enjoyed a restful recovery with her foster family, including doggie foster siblings Wyatt and Mazie. Once she had fully healed, this high-octane pup couldn’t wait to get back to her favorite activity—searching!
With careful oversight and guidance by our Canine Training team, Bay returned to SDF and continued to sharpen her detection skills with joint-friendly training exercises with the goal of placing her in a low-impact detection career. Because many detection jobs utilize a “passive” alert (like sitting near a scent source) rather than an “active” one (such as barking), trainers modified Bay’s reward sequence to teach her to passively alert. Through it all, Bay’s love of the hunt never waned, and we had high hopes this path would lead to her dream job.
All her preparation and hard work indeed paid off, and in May of this year, Bay headed to a career trial with our career change partners at Mussel Dogs! She spent some time working with the trainers there, and after a few weeks, she was officially recruited into their conservation detection program. Just three sessions into working with the target odor, she began to understand—this new training was similar to the search game she knew and loved, just with slightly different rules!
Now, rather than searching for people, Bay is learning to detect invasive quagga and zebra mussels, which can take over and devastate waterways and their ecosystems. With larvae that are invisible to the naked eye, these mussels make their way into lakes and reservoirs via boats and other watercraft, so before vessels are allowed to enter at-risk areas, they must go through a check station for a thorough inspection. These inspections are quick and easy, thanks to highly-trained mussel-sniffing dogs who can do a full boat inspection in less than a minute!
Once officially recruited into the detection program, Bay—originally named “Baby”—was renamed to fit in with the rest of the Mussel Dogs who boast nautical names like Captain, Jetty, and Pearl—very fitting names for dogs who work near the water! Bay’s trainers report that she’s doing very well in her training, and her commitment to the target odor is excellent!
Bay loves her new career, and we couldn’t be happier for her! We look forward to following Bay’s journey as she continues to train for this important job and can’t wait to see where her new career takes her!
Click here to learn more about our Canine Placement Program!