Ruby tried to tell him: The evidence was inside the stone wall.

She laid down on top of the wall, laid down beside it, looked at it. Hard.

“I kept calling her off the wall,” said her handler, game warden David Chabot. “I brought her back that fourth time. . . . At that point she’s like, ‘OK, I can’t lay on top of it, so I’m just going to lay beside it and stare at it, and if he’s any type of human being, he’ll think and take it apart.’ Sure enough, that’s what we did.”

Chabot dismantled the wall stone by stone while another game warden shined a flashlight in the crevasses and black Lab Ruby looked on. And then there it was, the spent green shot gun shell Ruby had sniffed out, proof the suspect was turkey hunting much too close to a Lewiston home.

Chabot got his evidence. Ruby got a dog treat and playtime with her favorite toy. Nearly a year later, both got an award from the Maine Warden Service, naming the May 2011 incident K-9 Conservation Case of the Year.

“You feel humbled. It’s not really anything I did, it’s what she did,” Chabot said. “And we have a lot of great dogs in state. We have nine other great K-9s that are probably better than she is.”

Chabot, a longtime game warden, got Ruby two years ago. He’d always loved having dogs, working with them, and a K-9 partner seemed like a good addition to his job. Ruby was 10-weeks-old when she first hopped into his Warden Service truck.

As she grew, Ruby got used to blaring sirens, bouncing over rural roads in the cab of Chabot’s truck and getting a treat whenever she did something right in training. At 10-months-old she was certified in article detection — sniffing out evidence and other items. At a little more than a year old she was certified in tracking.

Since they started working together patrolling Androscoggin County, Ruby and Chabot have racked up a number of finds, including the Lewiston evidence that led to their Maine Warden Service award.

Although Ruby always listens to Chabot when they work, it’s not so easy for Chabot to listen to Ruby — particularly when she leads him to a spot he believes is incorrect.

“It’s hard being a person, especially being a police officer, and just follow your dog without putting that thought process into it. We’re the ones that screw the animal up. It’s vary rare they’re wrong,” Chabot said. “If I put my thought process and interject it into what she’s doing, that usually screws us up. She looks at me (as if to say), ‘Seriously?’ “

That happened about a month ago when the pair went searching for missing 12-year-old Micah Thomas in Dresden. For three hours Ruby followed the boy’s scent, ultimately leading wardens to a river. Micah’s tracks were there, but they stopped at the riverbank. Wardens assumed the boy couldn’t have gone through the ice cold water. But Ruby didn’t assume; she just followed her nose.

“She wanted to swim across the river,” Chabot said.

It took two more dogs reacting the same way to convince wardens that Micah’s trail went across the water. They found him in a smelt shack. He’d rowed across the river in a canoe.

“She knew what she was doing,” Chabot said of Ruby. “Each experience . . . builds that trust that I have in her.”

Ruby lives with Chabot, his wife, and their three other dogs. One of those dogs, also a Lab, is a State Police K-9 that is partnered with Chabot’s wife.  

Labs aren’t as intimidating as German shepherds, a popular police dog. That’s an asset when a warden is searching for a small child or elderly person. Chabot also likes the fact Labs are independent thinkers, problem solvers and driven.

What are they driven by? Well, mostly food and fun.

Ruby is happy to get treats and her favorite red Kong as reward for a job well done. She didn’t attend the Warden Service awards ceremony.

“She didn’t even know,” Chabot said. “She didn’t even care about it.”

Have an idea for Animal Tales? Contact Lindsay Tice at 689-2854 or [email protected]