Lost keys? This Kamloops pup can sniff them out and find them
Anyone who's misplaced their keys knows what a hassle it can be to replace them but, in Kamloops, there's a new solution: a specially trained dog that can sniff them out.
Murphy belongs to Danielle Finnen, who has been working as a locksmith for more than a decade.
"He helps me do my job which is the coolest thing ever," said Finnen, who runs Interior Locksmith.
She knew there was something special with her pup the day she got him at 15 weeks old.
"The first thing he ever did when I went to pick him up was he grabbed the metal end of his leash and he plunked it in front of me," Finnen said.
"Most dogs don't tolerate metal in their mouth, whatsoever. You have to train them."
Earning his keep
A couple of weeks later, when she started Murphy in basic obedience training, she decided to see if he could learn to find keys.
As a locksmith, she gets frequent requests from clients about lost keys that need replacing.
The year before she found her four-legged helper, seven calls came in about keys that had been dropped in the snow and disappeared.
Finnen started by encouraging Murphy to pick up her keys and place them in her hand. Then, she upped the challenge and started hiding the keys around her house.
"It progressed to [hiding them in] fields and then [hiding] other people's keys, so he wasn't following my scent," she told CBC Daybreak Kamloops' Jenifer Norwell.
Recently, he helped a man whose keys had been missing for 17 days.
"I didn't think that he'd be able to find them, but it was worth a shot," Finnen said.
"As the gentlemen and I were talking, we heard 'jingle, jingle, jingle' and Murphy had found them."
It would have cost about $500 to replace all the keys if they hadn't been found, Finnen estimated.
"It's the most satisfying feeling knowing that your dog just helped somebody save a huge amount of money, especially at this time of the year — December is an expensive month," she said.
She only charges a service fee if the keys are found.
'Such great focus'
The trickiest part of it all? Teaching Murphy not to go hunting for keys that aren't actually lost.
"It was hard at that point to get him to not go in my purse," she said.
Finnen started putting a work vest on Murphy to help him distinguish work time and down time — now he only tracks the items while suited up for the task.
"He goes from puppy to 'let's do this,'" Finnen said.
"He's always had such great focus — you can't teach focus to a dog but he just loves what he does."
