Loki, a highly-trained Fort Worth police dog, is back home after he chewed a hole in his handler's fence and ran away New Year's Eve, apparently spooked by fireworks.
"(He) was AWOL, went on the lam on us," said Officer Brad Patterson, a trainer in the department's canine unit.
Officers and volunteers searched the South Fort Worth neighborhood Thursday morning, but couldn't find Loki. Even the police helicopter couldn't spot him.
"You just hope that he's okay and that he hasn't been hurt," Patterson said. "Also you have to factor in, has he hurt anyone?"
So police called Laura Davis and Kat Manning, who own a company called Dog-Gone Detectives that specializes in finding lost pets.
They arrived at the scene with Godiva, a labrador with a sensitive nose.
It took her just 15 minutes to find Loki, in a wooded area a few blocks away.
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"And there was the dog," Davis said. "We were right on his trail. He was just hanging out back there."
"This is the absolute best outcome we could have hoped for," Patterson said.
Dog-Gone Detectives claims to have an 85 percent success rate, but it doesn't come cheap.
The company charges $300 for three hours of searching, and if they find the missing pet, there's an additional $500 fee.
But the women said they would donate this search to the police department.
