Doggone it. The snoop strikes out.

Schnauzer's owner still hot on the trail

James B. Meadow, Rocky Mountain News

Published March 2, 2007 at midnight

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She was dark and leggy. A nice tail. A regular love machine with a wild tongue who knew how to have a good time. A real heartbreaker.

But now she was missing nine days. Leaving George morose and Jennifer Prantl "devastated."

"She's my baby," says Prantl, occasionally keeping the emotion out of her voice and the tears out of her eyes.

See, when your dog runs away your world sort of collapses.

Yeah, that's right - Pippin is a dog. Eighty pounds of black giant schnauzer. Broke out of her north Denver back yard on Feb. 20, along with her buddy George. George is a German wirehaired pointer. He came back 10 hours later. Pippin didn't. George is a mess. Prantl's not much better.

"I'm just devastated," she says. "When it's your kid, people don't expect you to be composed. But when it's your dog, they do. I'm not married - my dogs are my kids. I'm having a really hard time functioning."

So she called in a pet detective. Yeah, that's right - a pet detective. A no-nonsense customer named Nicole Mabrey, straight out of Great Falls, Mont. Mabrey's fee was $650 a day plus expenses. The total bill? Upwards of $1,500.

No matter. Maybe Mabrey is worth it. She once found a cat that had been missing eight weeks. She offers an "80 percent resolution rate." That means she finds the missing pet, dead or alive. Alive is always better, but even dead brings a certain mercy.

"Owners just want to know," says Mabrey. "They don't want to be left agonizing."

Prantl knows what she means. For nine nights, she's been yanked from sleep, thinking she hears Pippin's piercing bark, torn by the thought that "80-pound licking love machine" is somewhere out there. The first night Pippin went missing the bottle of gin in her house was "shrieking at me, 'Drink!'" She held off that urge but started smoking again - 11 years after she had quit.

She quickly got on a first-name basis with the guy who peels dead dogs off Denver's streets trying to find out if he had collected her pet. She called every shelter and humane society you can think of. She put up signs and offered a reward. She needed to know. Fifteen hundred bucks? Prantl's baby is so worth that.

Mabrey made the 780-mile drive to Denver in 12 hours. No big deal. Last year, she put 37,000 miles on her car in six months. Her car is a Toyota minivan. Only she says "Don't call it a minivan. It's a business investment."

So are Spencer and Willow. They're her tracking dogs. The ones who are supposed to pick up Pippin's scent and follow her trail. Sure the trail could be miles long. But that doesn't daunt the dogs.

Especially Spencer, a German shorthaired pointer. He'd seen worse. He'd tracked missing pets through rougher terrain than city streets. Plowed through snow up to his back end. Slid down cliffs. Jumped ravines. Even been zapped by electric fences. No matter. Once the game was apaw, he'd be in it to the end. Spencer, said Mabrey, "can think outside the box." Make good decisions. He wouldn't be distracted by the scents of other animals.

Mabrey places one of Pippin's training collars in a bag with four gauze pads. She waves a gauze pad lightly in front of Spencer's nose. Barely a sniff's worth. Boom. Spencer's off.

He has one thing working in his favor - the snow. You might think moisture blots out scent. You'd be thinking wrong. Moisture helps keep scent fresh. Snow is moisture. Snow is good.

At 10:12 a.m., Prantl watches Spencer pull the leash taut. Her voice is halfway between hope and despair. "I I feel like I'm going to be sick. I've felt so helpless for nine days. At least now I feel like I'm doing something."

Meanwhile, Spencer is. He ambles over unshoveled sidewalks made treacherous with a skin of ice and churned-up snow. Thinking outside the box. Leading Mabrey and Prantl and Prantl's mother Eileen, who is driving Mabrey's business investment.

Down 44th Avenue. Past Holy Family Catholic Church. Down Winona Street to 43rd Avenue. Across Yates, Zenobia and Sheridan. Way out of Pippin's neighborhood haunts.

What made her leave her comfort zone? What made her wander? Mabrey wonders.

"Prey drive," she figures. Pippin saw something smaller and chased it. That was probably fun so she kept at it until she wound up . . . where?

Past Tami's Burger Haven. Past Reptilian Haven. Along 44th Avenue again. Now Willow takes over. A fresh nose, a new perspective. The gathering traffic spooks Willow. Hello Spencer.

Along the way, Prantl stops people and asks if they've seen a big black dog with a bobbed tail? No one had.

It's 11:14 a.m. The trail leads to the entrance to Lakeside Amusement Park. The guy in charge says sure you can come in and look. Spencer picks up Pippin's scent. He moves forward. Pant pant pant pant. The scent leads through a graveyard of junk. Piles of tires. Rotting wooden pallets. Rusted stoves. Rusted storage drums. Then out to the railroad tracks that circle the lake.

Mabrey and Spencer disappear around a bend. Into a westerly wind that cuts through clothing like a scythe. Ten minutes later, the pet gumshoe comes back.

"Lotsa tracks," she says. "And they're all fresh. My gut tells me she's spent a lot of time here. There's a water source," she adds, pointing to the lake.

Prantl stands in the wind.

"My heart is beating a mile a minute," she says."

It has time to slow down.

Now, Pippin is likely a "roaming dog on the go." The hardest dog to catch because she had shelter, water and food - some good Samaritan was leaving mounds of food out for the areas's feral cats.

"She has no reason to get home," says Mabrey.

"God," whispers Prantl. "That's the most horrible thing I could hear. I know I shouldn't, but I have taken it personally. Why is she not coming home? I'm happy that she's alive, but I'm terrified that she might spend the rest of her life roaming Lakeside Park."

Then she weeps.

Mabrey turns therapist.

"This doesn't mean she doesn't love you," she tells Prantl. "She's just surviving. Right now, she's an animal first, a dog second, and Pippin third."

"I'm really on the edge right now," says Prantl.

That edge becomes narrower. Mabrey softly explains that it might not be so easy to convince Pippin to come back with Prantl. She's no longer Pippin the Love Machine; she's Pippin the Feral. It will take "memory triggers" to remind her of her former life. Should Pippin be spotted, Mabrey warns Prantl not to look directly at her, not to call her.

It's 12:24 p.m.. Mabrey feeds Spencer and Willow some string cheese. The humans adjourn to the snack bar in a nearby Target.

"I believe Pippin's spent the majority of her time in that area," said Mabrey, her arm motioning toward the amusement park.

It's 12:59 p.m. The pet gumshoe and her entourage gather at a gap in the chain-link fence that surrounds the lake. Mabrey gives Spencer a whiff of Pippin and he's off, strutting north on Harlan with a purpose.

"I'm on the dumb end of the leash, for sure," says Mabrey as Prantl smiles.

Mabrey decides to switch to Willow. Willow won't move from her cage. Pleas, threats, even string cheese - nothing works. It's all on Spencer now.

He ignores a bright yellow hydrant. He's focused. Then he's making U-turns. Something isn't right. He picks his head up and goes left. Right. The scent is gone.

She gets in the van with Prantl and Eileen .

At 2:21 p.m. Spencer is back in business inside the amusement park. Mabrey strains to keep up.

Spencer weaves past dormant rides. The Merry Go Round. The Flying Dutchman. He threads his way under the Wild Chipmunk and heads out of a hole in the chain link fence that is supposed to seal off Lakeside from the service road. He slides through another hole, followed by Mabrey.

"Fresh urine," she shouts, her voice trailing behind her.

In five minutes she's back. Through the fence. Fresh Pippin tracks have been confirmed by Spencer. He leads her along the railroad tracks again. Okay, this is Pippin's new realm. But where is she? Hiding by day. Coming out at night. Plenty of shelter to be found in the winter-abandoned buildings and rides of the amusement park. Only one thing to do.

"We'll have to do a bastard search," says Mabrey, referring to a people-only building-to-building search.

Moving past the Matterhorn and the Labyrinthe, into open doorways of buildings and bathrooms, Mabrey is a cautious shadow. Prantl is a nervous wreck.

Nothing.

It is 3:31 p.m. A guy comes over and says the park is closing.

"But someone else told us we had until 4:15," says Mabrey.

The guy shrugs.

Mabrey is glum. She is returning to Montana on Friday. She knows Pippins will not be found today. She is "very frustrated. Very frustrated."

Even if you've got an 80 percent resolution rate, there are days when a pet detective doesn't feel so good. Today is one of them.

It's 4:28 p.m. Mabrey and Prantl are standing outside the fence by the Wild Chipmunk. Mabrey is talking to Prantl about setting up a feeding station. A place to lure Pippin until a face-to-face meeting occurs. Prantl will need the cooperation of Lakeside. She hopes she gets it.

She doesn't want to wake up to the sound of a piercing bark. She wants her baby back.

The pet detective

Name: Nicole Mabrey

Age: 37

Occupation: Pet detective

Company: Pet Detectives Inc.

Location: Great Falls, Mont.

Rates: $650 a day, plus expenses

Cases: 65 percent felines, 35 percent canines

Success rate: 80 percent closure (finding the animal, dead or alive)

One of her strangest cases: Hired to track a dog that had been missing for four days. Her search dogs could not locate the scent of the missing animal outside the house. Finally went inside and found the dog dead of natural causes behind the piano. The owner was such a serious chain smoker she hadn't noticed the smell.

To reach: 1-877-GUMPAW1

meadowj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2606

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