“We are proud of the hard work put in by K9 Biza,” shared the Auburn Police Department
A missing 12-year-old child was found after a police K9 tracked her scent on Wednesday night.
The Auburn, Mass. police learned around 10:30 p.m. that the child had been missing from her home for around two hours, according to a post on the Auburn Police Department’s Facebook page. Massachusetts State Police troopers then joined local officers “due to the freezing temperatures and nature of the incident.”
The Auburn Police Department also enlisted the department’s K9, Biza, and K9 officer David Llunggren to help in the search.
The female German Shepherd and Ljunggren then picked up a scent that led them on a two-mile search, which ended with them finding the child.
Biza “led Officers to an area where evidence showed that the child had been present a short time earlier,” police said in a statement. “Officers converged on this area and located the child a short time later.”
“The child was reunited with their family and is safe,” the statement continued. “We are proud of the hard work put in by K9 Biza and are happy to report a positive outcome!”:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(598x0:600x2):format(webp)/Officer-David-LjunggrenK9-Officer-Biza-020124-a950ce720a5b421fa79f897041f03cdf.jpg)
Biza’s role in the department is to use her “superior sense of smell” to assist officers who need help “locating a suspect, narcotics, evidence, firearms, or even explosives,” according to the Auburn Police Department’s site. “Most importantly, K9s are often times used to locate missing children, missing elderly persons, or persons with disabilities who have wandered off.”
At one and a half years old, Biza joined the Auburn Police Department in 2022, according to her Instagram account. She traveled from Germany and received financial support from Massachusetts-based Vest-A-Dog to join the K9 force, reports WBZ.
Since joining the department, Biza has also tracked down a suspect involved in a bar fight, the police department reported in September 2023. Days before that incident, she located a suspect in a domestic violence case, per the authorities’ Facebook news release.
Biza also assisted other police departments in tracking down “distressed” missing adults. In August 2023, the Shrewsbury, Mass. Police Department recruited Biza to search for a missing 25-year-old man. She successfully found him less than one hour after his disappearance was reported, according to the police department.