Kamloops locksmith employs dog to sniff out lost keys

“He just kept continually putting metal in his mouth willingly, so I thought ‘hmm, I wonder if I can train keys to help people’, because it’s frustrating,” Finnen said. “You drop the keys out of your pocket, you start panicking and you start going through your mind of ‘okay, where was I?’.”

According to Finnen, replacing a set of lost car keys could cost hundreds of dollars. But, if Murphy finds them, it’s an $85 charge.

“If he finds them, awesome,” Finnen said. “If he doesn’t, there is no charge, because we are out to help people not make life harder.”

Because Murphy is the first dog to have the job of finding keys, Finnen has had to create her own training regimen.

“We started playing games where I would hide my own keys and through clicker training as soon as he even noticed my keys: click. treat. Eventually, as soon as he would see a set of keys he would get excited.”

This week, Murphy had his first chance to put his key sniffing abilities to the test.

“We did have a call, which I was super excited for,” Finnen said. “He searched and searched, and he did find this guy’s set of keys that had been lost for 17 days. That’s pretty impressive considering that everything he’s been training for has been pretty immediate. It’s a fresh smell.”

Finnen is hoping Murphy will help many more people over the winter, when keys tend to get lost in snowbanks.

Between Finnen’s locksmithing skills and Murphy’s key finding abilities, these two make quite the pair.

“I never would have thought that this would ever have happened but it did and I’m thankful for him everyday.”

by Jill Sperling

Kamloops locksmith employs dog to sniff out lost keys

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