Gordon’s owners had to move out of the apartment they were living in, so they packed up their belongings and left—without Gordon! The property manager discovered him later, alone inside the empty unit. Gordon was happy to see someone after being left alone for so long and happily greeted the startled property manager.
Despite his circumstances, Gordon was a friendly boy, so he was taken to the Tooele City Animal Shelter in Utah and put up for public adoption. Once at the shelter, staff noticed Gordon’s tremendous enthusiasm for toys and contacted our SDF Canine Recruitment team. One of our recruiters was quickly dispatched to screen Gordon and shared that when he pulled a tennis ball out of his pocket during Gordon’s evaluation, Gordon scaled a fence in his excitement to get it! That clinched it—Gordon was a search dog candidate!
Once at SDF, our trainers began working with Gordon to develop his innate qualities into the tangible skills he would need as a search dog. Gordon came to us obsessed with toys—which was good—but he was highly skeptical of playing toy games with people. “What if they’re all just trying to steal the toy?” Gordon seemed to wonder. Eventually, Gordon realized that playing games with a partner was more fun than playing with the toy alone, and just like that, Gordon had learned cooperative toy play, a cornerstone of search dog training!
From then on, this adorable Chocolate Lab/German Shepherd mix seemed to bring the best of both breeds to his training. He absorbed information like a sponge and quickly learned new skills, perhaps due to the intelligence inherent in German Shepherds, and charmed everyone with his high spirits, goofiness, and amiability: characteristics admired in Labs.
Whatever magical mixture Gordon possessed worked for him. Highly motivated to train, he sped through his search elements, progressing rapidly from barrel searches to buildings to the rubble pile. Once he gained confidence in agility, he mastered those skills quickly, too. So quickly that trainers had to slow him down—he wanted to finish obstacles as fast as possible to get to his toy reward!
Throughout the months of instructing Gordon, our trainers have fallen in love with him. This powerful young dog has a sweet, sensitive side you might not expect, with lovely expressive eyes that reveal what he’s thinking. He can be a silly boy, too, and it might be his irresistible goofiness that makes him a staff favorite. Trainers say that some of their best times spent with Gordon are after he completes his searches. A devotee of both tugs and retrieves, when he’s finished training, there’s nothing Gordon loves more than to hold a toy in his mouth while getting showered with praise and pets.
Now in our senior class of search dogs, Gordon is nearing the end of his chapter at SDF. He recently passed the last of his proficiency tests (including canine aggression, off-lead heeling, emergency stop, direction-and-control, and agility) and will soon start a new chapter with his chosen handler.
Whoever that handler turns out to be, we know Gordon’s life from now on will be happy. He’ll get to live in a family home with his human partner, getting all the love and attention he could want. He’ll also continue to work at the job he loves, training to sharpen his skills every day and even coming back to visit and train with his friends at SDF.
As a certified search dog, Gordon can come to the rescue of countless communities in need, be it in response to man-made or natural disasters, missing person searches, or car wrecks. How ironic that a dog abandoned by his human owners ends up a search dog whose sole purpose is to make sure humans aren’t left behind!
No matter how many times we meet dogs like Gordon, their stories never fail to inspire us. Their resilience reinforces the importance of our mission to recruit shelter dogs, and their accomplishments motivate us to do even more. We’re so thankful for the expertise of our recruitment team and for the shelter partners, transport volunteers, and many others who helped Gordon go from shelter dog to search dog. We’re proud to pieces of sweet Gordon and can’t wait to share news of his upcoming pairing and everything he achieves in his search career!