National Geographic Kids Chapters: Dog Finds Lost Dolphins: And More True Stories of Amazing Animal Heroes

Chapter 1 CALL FOR HELP

When Chris Blankenship got an emergency call to report to the beach, he expected it to be busy. And it was!

About 80 dolphins were wriggling and squeaking in the shallow water. A small army of people worked quickly to help them. Team leaders barked orders. Volunteers put on wet suits for their turn in the water. News reporters were there too. They were looking for a big story.

Chris is a dolphin expert. He has seen dolphins and whales stuck on shore before. This time was different. Usually one or two dolphins get stuck in shallow water. Sometimes they get stuck in the twisty roots of mangrove trees. But 80 dolphins! Chris thought. With so many, how do we know that we’ve found them all?

Every time a dolphin or whale gets stranded, it is a race against time. The sooner the dolphins are found, the easier it can be to save them. Chris ran his hands over a dolphin’s smooth, rubbery skin. He thought how odd it was that such a good swimmer needed help.

Dolphins are perfect for the underwater world. With their strong bodies and sleek fins, they can swim seven times faster than humans. They can hold their breath for more than 15 minutes and dive 2,000 feet (610 m) underwater.

Dolphins are also very smart. They hunt in groups. They make up games to play. They even name themselves using whistling sounds. Many researchers spend their lives learning how dolphins communicate. In a dolphin’s world, every click, whistle, and gesture has a meaning.

Yet sometimes dolphins end up in trouble. They can get stuck on a beach. It’s a dangerous situation for them. By the time they are found, most stranded dolphins are sick or have died already.

Why would such smart animals swim so close to a beach?

We don’t really know. Maybe some stranded dolphins have been sick. Maybe pollution in the water confused them. Maybe they got lost during a storm at sea.

In order to find the answer, scientists study stranded dolphins as they try to help them. They look for clues that will help them keep dolphins safe.

Chris and the animal doctors got to work on the stranded dolphins. The first step: Make sure the dolphin can breathe. Dolphins are mammals, like humans. They have lungs and need to breathe air. They take in air through a blowhole on their back, behind their head.

The stranded dolphins were very tired. They couldn’t stay up on their bellies or swim on their own. People took turns holding the animals up so they could breathe. They rested the dolphins on their knees to keep their blowholes above water.

The volunteers also kept the dolphins’ skin moist by splashing water on their bodies. A dolphin’s exposed skin can dry out quickly in the hot Florida sun.

A team examined each dolphin. They had to find out which dolphins were healthy enough to survive in the wild. The healthiest dolphins were helped back to deeper water right away. Sick dolphins were taken to a special hospital. There they were given medicine and food.

Dolphins and Whales

All dolphins and whales are in the same family—a group of animals called cetaceans (SE-TAY-SHUNS). There are more than 80 different types of cetaceans. The common name for the whole cetacean group is “whales.”

Whales are divided into two groups:

(photo credit 1.3)

(photo credit 1.4)

Dolphins have teeth, so they are part of the toothed whale group.

Chris popped a fish stuffed with medicine in a dolphin’s mouth.

This one is in rough shape, but it seems like a fighter, he thought. Suddenly, a shout got Chris’s attention.

“Chris!” yelled a volunteer. “Quick! Come over here!”

Chris ran down the beach to a spot full of mangrove trees. A small group of dolphins were stuck in the trees’ thick roots. They must have been separated from the main group. Now it was too late. They were too sick to save.

Chris sighed. I wish we had some way of locating dolphins. Then we could get to them sooner.

After that day, Chris kept thinking about what he had seen. He wondered if there was a better way to find lost dolphins. Then Chris started reading about some dogs that worked nearby. They were trained to search for people who get lost on or near the water. The dogs worked along beaches or from boats in the water. They sniffed the air for the missing person’s smell. They could even smell objects that were slightly underwater.

Chris wondered: If dogs can find humans in the water, can they find dolphins too?

Chris called Beth Smart, the head of the Dolphin and Marine Medical Research Foundation. Beth listened carefully. She liked the idea. Sure, no one had ever used a dog to find beached dolphins or whales. But that didn’t mean it was impossible.

Beth agreed to work with Chris on the project. “Let’s look for a dog!” she said.

One of Cloud’s trainers, Beth Smart, helps sick dolphins recover so they can return to life in the wild. (photo credit 1.5)

Chapter 2 RESCUER IN TRAINING

There are many different types of dogs. Beth’s first job was to figure out what kind of dog they should get.

Beth and Chris needed a dog that was smart. Not every dog could learn to find dolphins. They needed a dog that could swim well. A good swimmer would be safe working in a boat. The dog needed to be friendly and loyal to its handler. Like most dogs, it had to have a great sense of smell. But most important of all, it must love to play. Looking for lost dolphins is like a doggy version of hide-and-seek. The dog would do its best work when it was having fun.

Chris and Beth heard about a smart puppy from a man who trained police dogs. The pup was a Labrador retriever, a kind of dog that is perfect for working around water. They have webbed paws that help them swim. Labs also have an oily coat that keeps them warm and dry. Beth might have found the perfect pup.

But there was one problem. This puppy was a black bundle of fur. Black is the worst color for staying cool in the hot sun. And boy, does it get hot in Florida!

Beth and Chris decided to try her anyway. The puppy, named Cloud, wagged her tail and yipped with delight when she met them. She licked their hands and walked away. She found a nice big tree and curled up beneath it. Ha! Chris laughed to himself. She is already good at finding shade!

Beth and Chris knew that Cloud needed to be trained to do as she is told before she learned to find dolphins. They called Mike Clark, the owner of a police dog–training facility. Mike had trained lots of dogs, but never one who searched for dolphins. This was going to be fun!

First, Mike had to start with the basics: doggy manners. Cloud learned to sit, stay, and come when called. She practiced walking next to her handler’s side while on a leash. She learned to pay attention to Chris and Mike when they gave her commands.

Soon Cloud had learned the basics. She was ready to start learning how to find scents. This type of training makes use of a dog’s sniffing superpowers.

A dog’s sense of smell works just like a human’s. When a dog sniffs the air, tiny bits of odors enter its nose. In the nose, special cells take in the tiny bits. These cells send signals to the brain. Then the brain tells the dog what the smells are.

Dogs have about 220 million of these special cells. That’s 40 times more than humans have. Not only that, but the special place in a dog’s brain that is used to decode smells is almost twice as large as it is in humans. Scientists think that this means dogs are 1,000 to 10,000 times better at sorting out scents than people are. They get much more information from a whiff of air than people do.

Beth and Chris collected samples of smells from live dolphins. They put the samples on cotton pads. They placed the pads in tubes. Mike let Cloud sniff the tubes. Then he hid the tubes and asked Cloud to find them. Cloud found the tubes by following the trail of their smell. Mike trained her to sit and bark when she found one of the tubes.

“Good girl! That’s right, Cloud!” Mike and Chris praised Cloud for a successful search. Then they gave Cloud one of her favorite treats: lamb and rice doggy biscuits. Cloud gobbled them up.