Brigit
When Megan issued the command for Brigit to trail from the metal gate, Brigit wasn’t sure which disturbance Megan wanted her to follow. There was more than one here. One of them smelled like the lady who’d just left. The other smelled like the man who’d gone with her. For not the first time in their partnership, Brigit wished Megan could give her more specific instructions. Too bad Megan doesn’t speak dog.
Brigit did the best she could. She followed the lady’s scent first, leading Megan, Detective Bustamente, and the woman in the big coat back to a building near the zoo entrance. When Megan opened the door, Brigit could smell the trail more clearly given that the wind hadn’t been able to blow it away. She followed the trail all the way to the door of the room that smelled like the woman in the coat. The trail backtracked there to the monkey exhibit. They ended up back where they started.
Megan gave her a “good girl” and a liver treat before telling the woman in the coat, “She must have been on the keeper’s trail.”
Brigit’s partner instructed her to sniff around some more, which meant she was to look for additional trails. She picked up the vet’s trail and did her best to follow it. It wasn’t easy on a windy day like today, when the breeze scattered the scent. More than once she lost the trail and had to raise her nose in the air in an attempt to find it again. She led Megan from the monkeys to the gorilla exhibit.
The woman in the coat spoke this time. “She must be tracking Dr. Greer. He checked in on the gorillas after examining Zawadi’s tooth.”
Megan took her back to the courtyard a third time, and directed her once again to scent for a trail. Sheesh. Give a working dog a break, will ya?
Brigit sniffed her best sniff, flexing her nostrils as far as they would go. She’d smelled the monkey dung behind the snow cone cart earlier, but with this extra effort now she also detected just a hint of a scent on the fence near it. She led Megan over and sat down next to the poop, facing the fence to put Megan on notice.
Her partner bent down next to her and looked at the poop. That was weird. Megan normally issued sounds of disgust when Brigit showed interest in excrement and pulled her away from it. Humans are so fickle.