While working as a deputy sheriff in Lake County, which is a small rural county in the northern part of Michigan's lower peninsula, I went on a call of a breaking and entering of a mobile home.

I arrived to find the owners outside the home, and quickly discovered the home had been broken into. The damage to the doorway was obvious. It was winter time, and all footprint evidence was being covered with a snowfall. My department did not have a tracking dog, so I made a request for a tracking dog from the nearby State Police Post.

The trooper arrived with his tracking dog, and the dog quickly picked up the track. The dog followed the track across an open field toward an area where I knew there were other mobile homes. The track led right up to one of these homes. I had dealt with the owner of this home many times. I knew he was a likely candidate for the break-in at the nearby home.

The dog was unrelenting. He got on the track, and followed it steadily to this residential door. His reaction at the door was very strong - he was excited, scratching at the door, and whining. The handler and I tried the door and it was unlocked. Once open we could see fresh snow tracked toward the back of the home.

The handler allowed the dog to enter the residence. The dog quickly ran to the back of the home and stuck his head under a bed in the bedroom furthest back in the home. The dog would not come out from under the bed.

I stuck the barrel of my shotgun under the bed and said, “Come on out Woody.”

The reply, from under the bed was, “Woody ain't here.”

Woody spent another year in the County Jail upon his conviction for breaking and entering.