An Arapahoe County Sheriff’s K-9 named Rex tracked down a missing 7-year-old girl in just 12 minutes during his very first search and rescue mission.
God does not always send a person when someone needs help. Sometimes He sends feathers and fur. He sent ravens carrying bread and meat to feed Elijah by the brook. He opened the mouth of a donkey to stop Balaam in his tracks. He prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah and turn him around.
Our God has never been limited in how He delivers help. And on a spring afternoon in Colorado, He used a five-year-old black lab named Rex to bring a lost little girl safely home.
K-9 Rex Tracks the Girl Using Only Her Shoes
The girl had run off from her family during a trip to a local park. Deputy John Gray responded to the call with Rex, a 5-year-old black lab, and gave the dog a sniff of the child’s shoes.
Rex put his nose to the ground and tracked her scent directly to a nearby yard in just 12 minutes.
“It was really essential that he not only took us to the area where she went, but he communicated to us where she didn’t go. So that way we knew she was kind of contained in that area,” Gray said.
Rex Switches From Tracker to Comfort Dog
What made the moment even more remarkable was what Rex did next. The instant he found the frightened child, he switched from tracking mode to therapy mode, sitting beside her and offering calm, gentle comfort.
Rex originally served as a Littleton Public Schools therapy dog before going through explosives detection and missing persons tracking training. Deputy Gray called him a “triple threat.”
“They can not only smell our hormonal changes, but they can also lower our cortisol levels,” Gray explained. “To be able to bring some comfort to a kid in a pretty traumatic situation, I think was really important.”
Rex is part of a first-of-its-kind K-9 tracking unit alongside K-9s Bear and Riley. All three trained for 16 months. The Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office has already recorded 58 missing persons cases this year.
“Being able to deploy him and see it pay off and get a girl safely home — there’s not even really words you can use to describe it,” Gray said.
This story reminds us that God equips faithful servants of every kind with exactly what they need. Whether on two legs or four, He sends help right when it matters most.
“For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways.” Psalm 91:11 NKJV
WATCH: K-9 Rex Locates Missing Girl in Just 12 Minutes on First Mission
