A barking dog saved the life of his owner, who has dementia and had gone missing amid high temperatures in Utah last month.
According to a July 11 update from the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, the sheriff's office in Emery County was notified last month that a woman with dementia was missing after she took her dog for a walk on the mountainside and hadn't returned in more than a day.
An officer with the sheriff's office and his police dog, Kip, who is "trained and certified to track humans," began to search the area "shortly after dark," according to the post.
Though the nighttime temperature was a "chilly 55 degrees," daytime temperatures in the mountains reached nearly 100 degrees, the update said.
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Because of the extreme heat at the time the woman went missing, and due to how long she had been missing, the wildlife resources division said chances were low that Kip would be able to find her.
The pair was searching nearby cabins the woman might have passed when they heard a dog barking at around 3:30 a.m., the post said. They shifted focus of the search toward the area of the barking, thinking it could have been coming from the missing woman's dog, but were ultimately unsuccessful in finding her during their first day of searching.
A neighbor contacted the officer the next day and said he, too, had heard barking the day before, the post said. The neighbor told the officer the barking sounded like it was coming from an area without any homes.
The officer got access to local security cameras, which showed video footage of the woman walking with her dog, heading west, according to the update. The officer, Kip and the neighbor began searching in that direction.
While the group was searching the mountainside, the barking returned and grew louder, leading them to find the missing woman, according to the wildlife resources division.
According to the post, the woman was in good condition when she was found, but was extremely dehydrated and missing her shoes. She was taken to a local hospital for a medical evaluation.
"At the end of the day, her dog saved her life by barking to alert our officer and K-9 Kip," the wildlife resources division said. "We’re so glad she was found safe."
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