After a man went missing in Washington state on Thursday, a rescue team was led to his body when the man’s loyal dog, having stayed by his side, started barking and drew attention to the pair, officials said.
According to a lengthy Facebook post from the Pierce County Sheriff's Department, the unidentified 64-year-old man's wife reported him missing when he and his dog, Daisy, did not return home after a hike Wednesday, an activity he did often.
Authorities started to search for the missing man at daybreak Thursday, searching by foot and also trying to ping the man’s cellphone to find his location.
Eventually authorities found the man’s parked car and discovered a list of geocache locations inside the car. They used maps to find some of those nearby locations, but ultimately it was the dog’s barking that helped the rescue team find the man’s body.
“The newest member of our Search & Rescue Team heard the sound of a dog barking as he was searching his mapped location,” the Pierce County Sheriff's Department detailed on Facebook.
“The deputy continued hiking toward the sound of the dog's barking, and spotted a dog matching the description of Daisy up a very steep embankment above the Marshall River. Our deputy hiked another 30 minutes through the thick woods and brush up to the dog's location, where he located the missing man,” the Sheriff's Department continued.
In the Facebook post, the Sheriff's Department also said the man appeared to have suffered injuries from a fall.
"This was a very sad end to a tough search, but we are incredibly proud of our deputies and the [volunteers'] efforts to find the missing man and return him to his family," the department said.
“Without the barking of his loyal companion Daisy, we never would have located the missing man,” it wrote. “It was amazing.”