Kentucky K-9 Search
and Rescue Team
Making
Scents of Search and Rescue
by Angela Townsend
October 23, 2010
“Scout – take scent!” Jennifer Jordan Hall taps my pants leg. “Search!” Scout,
Hall’s search and rescue dog, barely touches her nose to the fabric before
bounding away in search of an item that bears my scent. Working the area in a
wide zig-zag pattern, Scout abruptly turns to sniff a small object in the grass.
She lies down with the object between her front paws and looks up at Hall as if
to say, “Here it is!”
Had I been a suspect discarding evidence as I fled from law enforcement, the
item Scout located might have been my weapon or an object I had stolen. As it
was, Scout found my wallet within moments of taking my scent. Earlier Hall had
explained how SAR dogs are experts at locating articles of evidence, making SAR
teams invaluable tools for law enforcement agencies. Scout proceeded to do
exactly as Hall said she would do, and she did her job swiftly and accurately.
Hall is a lawyer who serves as a Special Deputy Coroner with the Jefferson
County Coroner’s Office. Hall also runs the Kentucky K-9 Search and Rescue Team
in Jefferson County. KY K9 SAR deploys service dog teams when they are called to
help locate a missing person, forensic evidence, or human remains. The
non-profit agency works with the Jefferson County Public School System, as well
as with law enforcement and emergency management agencies. Hall trains with her
dogs extensively throughout the United States, and they have been deployed to
assist with searches in five states. One of Hall’s primary goals is to educate
the general public and law enforcement about the tremendous benefits of canine
search and rescue teams.
Service dogs are commonly trained to perform specific tasks. Tracking dogs
search for lost or missing persons; cadaver dogs search for human remains; other
dogs are trained to locate drugs, explosives, or articles of evidence.
Hall is taking search and rescue to a new level by cross-training her dogs to
perform three types of searches. Her dogs have trailed missing persons, located
articles of evidence, and found human remains. The dogs know from Hall’s command
which type of search they are being asked to perform.
The breed of dog Hall uses is considered unusual within the realm of Search and
Rescue. In the United States, bloodhounds and German shepherds are commonly
trained to work with search and rescue teams and with law enforcement. Hall’s
two dogs are Parson Russell Terriers, a breed developed more than a century ago
in England. Scout, officially Cool Runnings' Scout, and Remy, officially Remex
of Wren, are both award-winning, certified search and rescue dogs.
A search and rescue team is comprised of two members – a dog and its handler.
Cross-training requires an intelligent, energetic dog that enjoys the work. The
dog’s handler must match that energy and be willing to commit extensive time and
concentration to learning how to read the dog’s body language and how to bond
with the dog as one half of a search and rescue team.
Each type of search presents its own challenges.
“A live trail is scent specific,” Hall says. “The dogs must have a scent
article, and they must have the point the missing person was last seen. The dogs
will only indicate the specific person for whom they are searching, to the
exclusion of all others.”
Cadaver training is not scent specific. The dogs will locate any human remains
in the search area. Hall explains that because of the countless variables in
searching for human remains, the dogs must be trained to recognize and indicate
that they have found bones, skin, blood, hair, adipocere, and even human ash.
They must be able to locate remains that are covered, buried, hanging from
trees, or in water.
“The dogs are trained to work in every imaginable circumstance,” she says.
Scout and Remy have participated with Hall in simulated disasters, searching
through rock and rubble. They have trained inside buildings, across paved lots
and farmland, and in barns filled with hay, and they are trained to perform live
searches and to detect human remains on lakes and rivers.
“Terriers are great on water,” Hall says.
Like a live trail, evidence detection is based on human scent. For example, a
suspect fleeing from police tosses his gun away before he is caught, and
officers are unable to locate it. The handler tells the dog to scent the suspect
and then takes the dog to the area in which the gun was tossed. The dog will
locate the weapon because it carries the suspect’s scent.
Perhaps a suspect claims he was never in a certain car. The handler tells the
dog to scent the suspect and then takes the dog to the car in question, where
the dog will indicate if she finds the suspect’s scent in that car.
“What we would call an ‘alert’ is actually the dog’s natural response to finding
what it’s looking for,” Hall says. “We train dogs to demonstrate a specific
behavior to ‘indicate’ what they have found.”
When they have found a live subject, Scout and Remy are trained to lie down and
quickly rise in front of that person. They identify human remains by reaching
out and lightly touching the area with a paw. And when they locate an article of
evidence, they lie next to it, as Scout demonstrated when she lay down with my
wallet between her paws.
And to prove that wasn’t an accident, Hall distracts Scout and asks my husband
to toss his cell phone into the grass. It lands a considerable distance away. At
the commands to “take scent” and “search,” Scout bounds away to search for an
article that carries this man’s scent. Scout walks right past my wallet without
so much as a second glance – she is on a new search now, and the wallet doesn’t
carry the scent she is looking for. Scout works across the area and circles
back, her body going tense with excitement when she locates the cell phone. She
promptly lies on her belly with the phone between her front paws and looks up at
Hall.
“Good girl!” Hall says. “You did it!”
Scout and Remy are rewarded for their work with praise, a small treat, and a few
minutes of play with their favorite toy, a small stuffed monkey on a string. The
toy is the true reward, because Scout and Remy only get to play with it after
they work.
On this particular Saturday afternoon, Hall brought Scout and Remy to
Elizabethtown to train with fellow members of the Hardin County based Kentucky
Bloodhound SAR.
“I am honored to be a part of this group,” Hall says of the Kentucky Bloodhound
SAR. “We care about doing the best job that we can, and we work well as a team.”
The Kentucky K-9 Search and Rescue Team is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization
funded by donations. For more information about Jennifer Jordan Hall and the
Kentucky K-9 Search and Rescue Team, visit them online at
http://www.kyk9.org.
(Click photos to
enlarge)
(Click photos to
enlarge)
