Doggie Do-Right

Search-and-Rescue Mutts Teach Their Trainers That the Trick Is to Go Where the Nose Goes

"Whoza good boy? Who iz? Iz you? Oh it iz. Oh it iz. Who luvz-a Morgan? Everybody-luvz-a Morgan. Yayyyyyy!"

A damp, schpitzy Saturday morning. Four humans of Takoma Park's Metrodogs are loving on Morgan, a border collie-ish mutt, for completing his longest track ever. It began behind Oakland Terrace Elementary School and ended in the back yard where Kelly Gray sat on a stump and waited to be rescued.

Iz Morgan the best boy ever? Oh he iz. Oh he iz. Who gets some cheese now? Whogetssumcheez?

He does.

Metrodogs is the kind of story that DreamWorks will one day make into a family flick: Group of mutt owners turns their pound pups into crackerjack search-and-rescue squad. They'll find a lost Scout troop. Cuba Gooding Jr. will star.

That's a ways off. The Metrodogs haven't actually rescued anyone yet.

For now Metrodogs is about the practice -- and the secret life of your dog.

* * *

"Now she's popped her head up. She's distracted."

Karen Favret translates the movements of her yellow lab, Gracie, as the pair move through a residential neighborhood. They are following the scent of Francis Gilbert, a volunteer who hid 20 minutes ago.

"She's crittering -- getting distracted by other animal smells." Favret, wearing a vest emblazoned with a picture of a German shepherd, switches to the all-business chirpy voice she uses to get Gracie back on a scent: "Where'd it go?! Where'd it go?! Check check! Check check!"

Favret is an oceanographer who founded Metrodogs last fall after moving to Washington; now she leads four other human/dog teams in biweekly practices. In Los Alamos, N.M., she'd volunteered with a wilderness search-and-rescue team. Metrodogs trains for urban and suburban search issues -- lawns and parking lots, wandered-off toddlers and Alzheimer's patients. They start with simple exercises and work their way with lots of Pavlovian practice and treats to finding strangers by scent.