Ringo to the Rescue—Dog Saves Dying Woman

April 15, 2001 Mayflower, Arkansas, USA

What do you do when you get an urgent missing-persons report, and you have no idea where to start looking?  That's easy for the Faulkner County Sheriff's Office; send in Ringo.

Although he doesn't wear a trench coat, and a deerstalker cap would certainly fall off his head, Ringo the Belgian Malinois is the best detective in the force when it comes to that sort of thing.  After all, Sherlock Holmes himself said, "Dogs don't make mistakes."

So when Ricky Kelley reported his 58-year-old sister Edna Truelove missing from her home last week, the sheriff called for Ringo and his partner Brad Brocker.

There was very little to go on, but all it took was a pillow case, and Ringo set to work.  He picked up the scent near the house and tracked it through the woods to a dense brier patch.

Only Ringo alone could wiggle his way through the thicket, but once he got through, "he stood on his back legs and had a fit," said Detective Brocker.

When the rescue squad cut through, they found the woman laying face down with pill bottles nearby.  The Emergency Response Team rushed her, still breathing, to the Conway Regional Medical Center.

The Sheriff's Office commented that rescuers would not have found Ms. Truelove without the dog.

Ringo is used three or four times a week, mostly to track down suspects, but also to find missing persons and hidden drug stashes, his partner indicated.

The dog's life-saving efforts are all just part of the job, he added, giving Ringo a few extra pats on the head.

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