A family has been reunited with their beloved Border Collie thanks to one man's dog-detective skills after it ran away following a car crash near Hanmer Springs.
Eleven days ago, Haley Palmer, her partner and her seven-month-old daughter were involved in a crash, all thankfully uninjured, though their three-year-old Border Collie Ace was tied to the ute's deck and dashed from the scene.
That's where Don Schwass' dog-detective skills came to the rescue. He told AM co-host Ryan Bridge "it's the reason" he does it and has been for 30 years.
Schwass said it took a lot of planning and a team effort to find Ace, which was broken down into two parts: the search and rescues and planning and execution.
One key part was the family's scent.
"I just use it as a bargaining chip, you know, I just sort of bait him, or tease him that, 'Hey look, mum's in the area', and use it for sightings or just making them come out to me."
Schwass took Hayley to the site where he thought Ace was and where he believed the dog was heading.
"He was pretty transient, of most of the dogs I've tracked, he moved a lot and he really didn't have a plan."
He used Haley to bait Ace to make him come out and stop moving. Once Schwass located the Border Collie he used a heat thermal drone to have eyes on Ace.
"I could get directions of where he was going because normally they don't like coming to strangers. But I'd done some state mapping with the owner, so they knew I was involved with the family somehow and just work with him and yeah, to get Legos. He came to me and came over," he said.
Watch the reunion and full interview above for more.
