A new patrol officer on the Madison Police force is getting credit for possibly saving an elderly woman's life.

"You can't ask for anything more valuable than a dog that might have saved somebody's life," says K-9 Handler Jim Donnell.

Meet Johnny the patrol dog. He's been on the force for less than a month, but he's already earning his Kibbles.

Monday, he was able to track down a missing, disoriented woman who had walked away from a group home on Madison's north side.

There was concern over her mental health, and that she was out in the cold with no warm clothing. Johnny picked up the scent, and police followed his nose.

"By being able to use the dog we were able to speed the process up instead of having to call in numerous officers to search the entire area and comb the entire area it was just me and one other officer, we used his nose and his nose led us right to her within I'd say less than two and maybe three minutes," says Donnell.

Johnny is trained to track bad guys and look for narcotics, but he's also proving he can find missing, vulnerable people.

His trainer says they had just been working on it the day before.

By the way, private funds were used to buy and train the dog. Radio station WJJO is holding a radio-thon to raise money for the program at the end of the month.