I have a small favor to ask that only takes a few minutes and costs absolutely nothing, but it is for a good cause that is important to everyone...
We are working on a grass-roots effort to promote the use of Bloodhounds/scent-discriminating search dogs -- to help find missing children and adults! But we need thousands more signatures in support on our online petition in order to get it passed as a national law, and your help will be most deeply appreciated!
If you are a U.S. citizen, won't you please visit the 2nd link below to read the Preface to "Molly's Law" and sign in support? More background information on this important project can be found at the 1st link. Permission is freely given to copy and share the links and information with your family, friends and co-workers, to help us reach our goal! Thank you!
How is that gonna be helpful? And aren't those being done already? If people are lost in the woods aren't they using dogs to locate them? I don't really see how dogs can help in searching for missing people...
How is that gonna be helpful? And aren't those being done already? If people are lost in the woods aren't they using dogs to locate them? I don't really see how dogs can help in searching for missing people...
Hi, Jabo;
Thanks for asking! Scent-discriminating man-trailers (usually Bloodhounds, but other breeds can also be trained in this method) excel at following the scent of the individual person... to the exclusion of all others. They are also capable of following old/cold, contaminated trails... and, if trained to it, the scent trail of an individual that left or was taken in a vehicle! They can save many man-hours and much critical time, if called in promptly on missing persons cases. If a child or adult is missing and endangered, there is a possibility of saving a life. If it's too late for that, they may help recover the remains... to give some closure to the family.
Unfortunately, most people assume (or are led to believe) this resource is always or most always being used... when it is not! While you occasionally see news reports showing the use of a dog, just any dog may not be trained for the task at hand. The greatest majority of law enforcement departments that have a K-9 unit use German Shepherds, Malinois, Rottweilers, Labs, and other breeds used primarily for air-scent tracking (which is different than trailing/man-trailing), apprehension, drug work, etc. Very few of these can follow an aged, contaminated or vehicle trail... so it's often "game over" shortly after (or even before) they start a search! Too frequently, many hours pass before a person is reported missing or a K-9 search can be started, so the window of opportunity is lost for the success they may have had on a "hot" or fresh trail. And most victims are taken in a vehicle, which further compounds the difficulty of the search... but we have seen properly-trained Bloodhounds work these trails pretty easily!
Our proposed law is NOT to discourage or eliminate the use of law enforcement (LE) and search and rescue (SAR) dogs trained in other methods... but to help ensure that scent-discriminating man-trailers (particularly Bloodhounds) are ALSO used in missing persons cases! This breed goes back in history as having the best olfactory ability: estimated to be 300,000 to 3,000,000 times more powerful than a human's, and much stronger than the average dog's. There are breed books on the subject, and you can also Google "Bloodhound(s)" on the internet to find out more about the many ways these dogs are/can be used. And some are not common knowledge or even listed among their abilities!
Your example of people lost in the woods has its own problems and set of circumstances for working dogs... so combined efforts by air-scent and man-trailing dog teams can help produce the best results! One of those problems being so many foot-searchers in the woods looking for the missing person and contaminating the area and the difficulty of working dense woods, so each situation has to be assessed accordingly. Will the searches always be successful? Of course not, for various reasons, but the chances they will be are greatly improved!
I hope the links provided and the additional information here will answer some of your questions. We have seen over many years that just waiting and hoping that scent-discriminating man-trailers will be used as they could (and should) be is just not going to happen! The only way to bring about a change is through the proposed "Molly's Law", so I hope that you and others reading this will join in support and sign our online petition... then pass the links on! Thank you for your interest, and don't hesitate to ask if you have any further questions!
Any comments from the pro-animal rights groups or something? I think this is quite a good reason... Would study more about it. Thanks for the explanation.
