This lost dog used his sense of smell to find his owner’s office

It was a scary moment for Australian radio host Ryk Goddard when his dog snuck out of his house in the dark of night. Goddard’s pup, Cleo, went missing. “She slipped her collar and ran off on the domain last night,” he wrote on Facebook the morning of May 31. “If you see her please PM me.”

But when he opened the studio door the next morning, Goddard found a huge surprise.

“She found me!!!! CLEO was at the front door of the ABC at the end of my show!!!” he wrote.

Goddard’s colleague at the radio station wrote, “she was spotted curled up near the front door of the ABC Radio Hobart studios this morning, just metres from where her best friend was working.” The station says Cleo may have only been to work with her owner once or twice, yet somehow she knew how to find him all on her own.

Dog trainer Scott Hunt told ABC Radio Hobart that, if your dog runs away, the trick to enticing his or her return is all in the nose: “Mr Hunt said if you lose your dog, leaving out an object with your scent on it such as a T-shirt, or staying by the car that they know, can be enough to help the dog find you again.”

In fact, dogs have an amazing sense of smell.

“If you make the analogy to vision, what you and I can see at a third of a mile, a dog could see more than 3,000 miles away and still see as well,” James Walker, former director of the Sensory Research Institute at Florida State University, told PBS.

Do you think you’ve got a Cleo on your hands? Check the list of dog breeds most likely to run away, including bloodhounds, Great Pyrenees, Bluetick Coonhounds and Saint Bernards.

Goddard and Cleo, meanwhile, had an impromptu take-your-doggie-to-work day.

[h/t: Hello Giggles]