Search and bring - but what?

by Jürgen Holzhausen
(Munich, Germany)

By writing this story I start laughing quietly although the story happened a long time ago. If you start laughing at me as well, it's only fair.
I was born and still live in Germany, so please forgive me for mistakes in the English language.
 
I trained my dog for searching, finding and bringing things towards me. My dog loves it and has become really good in this.
 
At one evening I went out for a walk with my mixed breed dog. Her name is Pucki.
The sun was already set, the sky was black but the moon was full and shining bright, so I didn't need a torch to see for the next 60 feet ahead. I went along a field road, beside was meadow. The grass was about half feet high.
 
I started thinking of begining a simple training session here and checked my pockets for something useful to search for.
Empty, nothing useful for hiding. Stop, I found my house key with an attached leather bag in my pocket -
But just lying it into the grass seemed not a good idea to me. What else? I looked around and saw a molehill. There are no others molehills with a house key on it, I thought and placed my house key onto the molehill in front of me. Secure enough - or unsecure ? I steped 3 steps back but unfortunately there were plenty of molehills on the meadow.
 
I didn't want to give up at that point and looked around. I found a small branch just a hand long. I plunged the stick vertically into the molehill and checked again. Now the molehill was unique. House key and an antenna maked him to a special molehill. I was satisfied with this.
 
To make it not to simple, I went backwards to the field road, than went about 300 feet further away on it before I turned back into the meadow. The light wind was blowing towards me. Perfect place. I unleashed my dog and sent him for searching against the wind. My dog sensed my expectation and ran off fast. After 2 seconds he was out of sight and about 15 seconds later - I could listen her again. Here she was again in front of me. With the small wooden branch in her mouth.
 
For those of you, who like questioning me now, how I got my key back, the answer is too simple.
 
I sent my dog ​​off again and she brought the key just as reliably as if it were the easiest thing in the world.
Days later, I started thinking why she took the branch instead first. The answer is, that I had the branch at last in my hand. It smelled like me. For the dog it was the right thing.I sent my dog ​​out again and she brought the key just as reliably as if it were the easiest thing in the world.Jürgen Holzhausen