CALAIS – A 3-year-old child, who wandered off Wednesday morning dressed only in shorts, a light sweater and tennis shoes, was found safe and sound more than a mile from her house.

Around 10 a.m., Dale Grass noticed that his daughter, Kendra, was missing and that one of the family dogs was unhooked from its chain. He checked with neighbors to see if they had seen his daughter.

Neighbor Mary Malloch said she became aware of the problem when Grass came to her door Tuesday morning. She said the youngster often played with her children. “Her father came to the house asking me if I had seen his daughter or his dog,” she said.

After Grass found that his daughter was not at the neighbor’s house, he called the Calais Police Department. He told police his daughter had been missing for about 20 minutes. Calais police notified the Fire Department and the Maine Warden Service.

Calais Police Chief Michael Milburn asked Washington County Sheriff’s Department dispatchers to send the closest canine unit to assist in the search. “Once we examined the scene, we determined that the possibility existed for a canine track. So we secured the area so as not to contaminate the scene,” he said.

Calais firefighters and wardens immediately began a search of the wooded area behind the girl’s home. Warden Wade Carter and his canine responded to the scene, but the child was found before they joined the search. Although the temperature was around 45 degrees Wednesday, deep snow still covered a large portion of the search area.

At 11 a.m., searchers reported they had followed the tracks about a quarter of a mile from her house. They said she was walking on top of the snow. They were able to follow the tracks to a log cabin that belonged to Hazen Hill, the Grasses’ next-door neighbor.

Hill, who waited on the side of the road with other neighbors, said he built the log camp in 1972. He said he ordinarily would visit the area, but because he had sold his snowmobile, he had not visited the camp this year. “It’s a little locked camp; kids couldn’t get into it,” the 93-year-old Hill said.

Warden Joseph Gardner said the youngster was tracked for about 11/2 miles before she was found.

“She’d gone to the back of the field, down across a snowmobile trail. Once the snowmobile trail ended, that’s when she started breaking through the snow,” he said. Gardner confirmed she was found with one of the family’s dogs.

She apparently left her yard with two dogs after unhooking one of them, a chocolate Labrador, from his chain.

“She basically stayed with him [the chocolate Labrador] the whole time,” Gardner said. “When they found her, the one dog was with her; the other dog had returned to the house.”

The child was found by firefighter Butch Hanson around 11:15 a.m. “She was a little cold, but pretty much unharmed,” Gardner said.