A Massachusetts police K9 followed her nose to find a 12-year-old who went missing in frigid temperatures last week.
The K9 Biza is a female German shepherd and managed to track the child’s scent for over 2 miles. Officers learned the child left their home at around 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday. The officers called upon the K9 Biza.
The child was last seen in the Pakachoag Hill area of Auburn and left home without a cellphone or their mother’s permission to leave.
Officers, detectives, and Massachusetts State Police troopers converged on the area to locate the wandering child.
The K9 Biza and her handler, Auburn Police Officer David Ljunggren, were deployed to help with the search. Biza picked up the child’s scent and went to work on finding her.
Biza tracked the scent for over 2 miles and led the officers to an area where they found evidence that the missing child had passed by a short time later.
Additional officers joined the search to find the child and converged on the area where they found the evidence and found the child a short time later.
The child has since returned to their family and is safe and sound far away from harm.
Biza has her own Instagram account and received the title “Miss December” in the Massachusetts Vest-a-Dog 2024 calendar.
Biza joined the K9 Auburn Police Department in 2022.
K9 Division’s role at Auburn Police Department
A K9’s primary role in law enforcement is as a search tool due to a dog’s superior sense of smell.
“Dogs can ‘smell down’ to the molecular level the same way a microscope can ‘see down’ to the molecular level. So Biza didn’t smell the child from two miles away; rather, she smelled the clumps of molecules the child had left on the ground as she wandered and followed that ‘smell trail’ straight to the child. Had the child crossed a stream of water, Biza likely would have become confused because the water would have carried the smell trail away, and there would be nothing left to follow,” said Sean Prichard, President and Head Canine Fitness Coach at Pant and Wag.
When officers need help locating a suspect, narcotics, evidence, firearms, or even explosives, they will bring in a K9. K9’s help to locate missing children, elderly persons, or persons with disabilities who have wandered off.
Even though there are some people who are scared of such dogs, in reality, apprehension, where a K9 bites a suspect, occurs less often than people realize.
The K9 unit is a part of the Auburn Police Department Patrol Division. The K9 unit’s primary objective is to perform basic police-related functions, such as answering calls for service, while supplementing the Patrol and Detective Division with K9 applications.
Officer Ljunggren and Biza educate the public about the police department’s mission, the K9’s specific function within the department and general safety. This is done through lectures and demonstrations both in and out of the community.
