Dog-Gone Diamond Stud Earring Found! Union Grove, WI

Melrose, Wisconsin resident Alisha Koxlien is usually delighted to be greeted by Louise, her beloved Miniature English Bull Terrier. But as bad luck would have it on Friday the 13th while showing Louise at the all-breed AKC dog show in Union Grove, near Racine, Wisconsin the exuberant Terrier accidently dislodged one of Alisha’s diamond stud earrings. It wasn’t clear if Louise swallowed it during the encounter, if it was in the grass by the kennels, or if the earring fell out on a subsequent half-mile walk.

I received a phone call from Alisha the next day. Her insurance company encouraged her to find someone with a metal detector who might search for the diamond stud. Subsequently, a friend of hers found me on https://theringfinders.com/ website and we arranged to meet at the Racine County Fairgrounds that evening.

Even for experienced detectorists, such tiny pieces of jewelry are extremely challenging to find. Many metal detectors and probes will not register a stud earring, especially if it is positioned vertically. It’s like trying to find a needle in the proverbial haystack.

I arrived on location, met Alisha and appraised the situation. Alisha showed me the matching earring and I used it to calibrate my equipment. The signal was just a whisper on my device. Being the area was a long-established public fairground, it was loaded with metallic debris (foil wrappers and aluminum pull tabs) which made the search all the more challenging since these targets easily overshadowed the earring’s faint hiss. For good measure we sat Louise down on her hind end and scanned her white belly up and down in case she had swallowed it. Louise was clear of any metallic objects inside her, but she sure loved the attention!

Working on my hands and knees, I began to systematically scan the grassy location where the dog encounter occurred. It was the thick crabgrass variety, the kind that hides stud earrings. After 40 minutes I had only covered about 120 square feet, the size of an average kitchen. It was painstaking. My headset was howling with trash signals and so I was mostly watching my controller closely for a razor-thin line on the non-ferrous side of its scale.

Suddenly, the image I was hoping for flashed across the screen, prompting investigation. I parted the grass with the precision of a barber and there, pressed into the ground, lay Alisha’s diamond stud earring! The smile on Alisha’s face tells the rest of the story! But you know, I also got the clear sense from Louise that she too, in her doggy way, was relieved!