If you’re reading this article and you’re a dog lover, grab yourself a couple of tissues because this is a good one – with a lovely, and most wonderful, happy ending.
As a filmmaker, Noles Dennhardt has a lot of filming experience. He worked on the Crave documentary, “Thunder Bay” and was one of the camera operators for “A Sobering Story”. He also has a lot of filmmaking equipment, including a drone he uses for aerial shots. The drone has come in handy for taking footage of hard to reach places and provides a spectacular bird’s eye view of Thunder Bay and the surrounding area. The drone is also perfect for finding things that people have lost, like, for instance, a pet dog.
“I got a call from a man, early one morning, saying he had lost his dog. He was obviously upset. He’d been looking for her for four days, driving his quad around the fields in the country where he lived, but he couldn’t find her. He asked if I could help.”
As a fellow dog lover, Noles immediately said yes.
The man, who wishes not to be identified, gave Noles a Google map image of the surrounding area and showed him the areas he had already searched. He had a few spots flagged where he thought his dog may be, so they set out to look at those places first. “He told me that his dog was very loyal and would never have taken off, and that he assumed she was trapped or hurt or something terrible had happened,” Noles said. “I really hoped we could find her, safe and sound.”
Noles set the drone off and used the wide-angle lens to scope out the area. He changed to a zoom lens whenever the drone was hovering over a place like an abandoned building or structure. “It was a perfect day to do a search,” Noles recalls. “The sun was shining, and the weather was fair, so the dog likely wouldn’t be tucked away where we couldn’t see her.”
The drone camera then picked up an abandoned building that had collapsed, leaving its basement and deep cemented walls exposed. Noles immediately zoomed in. “The basement was impossible to see by foot. It really was the perspective shift of the drone that made it seem so detectable.”
“I’ve already looked here but it’s worth a shot,” the owner said with a sigh. “After this we may as well land, I suppose.”
Noles hovered the drone over the structure and noticed another part of the basement that was hidden from view. He zoomed in closer and noticed some movement.
“Dude!” he cried. “That’s your dog!”
The next few moments were a blur of shock, excitement and frenzy as they made their way to the basement and evacuated Honey.
They stopped the quad at the edge, looked down, and there she was, wagging her tail, exhausted and very much missing her best friend.
“The reunion was something absolutely breathtaking,” Noles said with a smile. “It was one of the best things that I’ve ever witnessed, and I was so happy to be a part of it. I feel very fortunate to have played a part in the rescue.”
When Noles posted the video of the find on YouTube he wanted to let people know that he would be glad to help people find their lost pets, or anything else that’s lost, for that matter. The first lines of text read: “I have the capacity to make a difference, and I want to do that. Please contact me for assistance in locating someone/something you love. Just throw me a few bucks for gas and a sandwich!”
If you happen to throw a few bucks Noles’ way, he’ll use it to upgrade his drone and add thermal vision equipment so it can be more effective in finding lost things when the sun isn’t shining.
On most days the conditions aren’t as conducive to rescue operations as on the day he helped find Honey! The rest of the money…well that will go to charity, especially the ones that look after our four-legged friends.
