Chesterfield K-9 helps find missing 4-year-old girl in Powhatan

CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) -- A Chesterfield County Police Department K-9 helped find a missing 4-year-old girl in Powhatan after locating a small footprint in the creek and following the logging road, where she was found.

In a social post on Thursday, Oct. 23, the department shared that Chesterfield K-9, Mazie, along with her partner, K-9 Officer Dickson, responded to a call for service for a missing 4-year-old girl, who was last seen one hour before.

According to police, the grandfather said that the girl was in the garage with him in the back of the property and that he let her go outside and play. He believed the girl had been accompanied by an outside dog.

"However, the dog came back without her, and she was nowhere to be found," police wrote in the post. "Multiple family members, neighbors, and deputies had searched the woods prior to reaching out for a Bloodhound."

Mazie and Dickson used one of the girl's sandals to track her out behind the garage -- the location where the 4-year-old girl was last seen.

After entering the woods and making it down a creek, police located a small footprint in the sandy edge of the creek, and they eventually cut through thick brush and onto an old logging road, according to police. They then heard the girl's voice ahead.

"Mazie tracked right to the little girl who was soaking wet, but unharmed," police wrote.

According to officials, they tracked for a mile from the home into the woods before locating her.