Why no tracking dogs?

[s-cubed]

One of the police brass at last night's briefing said they had found blood a few blocks from the shoot out early Friday morning.. It would have been an easy matter to have had a tracking dog follow the scent from that point, and would have saved. Lot of effort and time. The same thing happened in the Chandra Levy case. Hundreds of officers looked and missed her body, but a search and rescue/cadaver dog would have found her in time to get forensic evidence.

I'm not trying to second guess here: I just don't understand why dogs aren't used more. Obviously they can't follow a suspect in a car, but they certainly could follow a bleeding suspect on foot.

[randr]

1. Exact thought crossed my mind

A trail of blood would have led a dog right to suspect in no time.

[LiberalEsto]

2. When I was listening to live coverage of the search yesterday

some of the reporters mentioned that law enforcement people were using dogs.

The place where the suspect was found was apparently outside the targeted search area.

[haikugal]

3. Very good question...n/t

[Drahthaardogs]

4. I train dogs that blood track wounded game.

But that training is generally NOT something human tracking dogs do. My guess is a blood tracking dog was not available. It is completely different training.

[LuvNewcastle]

5. "A blood tracking dog was not available."

They could bring tanks and hundreds of men from all those agencies, but they couldn't find a bloodhound?

[Drahthaardogs]

7. Bloodhounds do not track blood, generally speaking, they track foot scent.

Blood tracking is not the same as foot scent tracking. I don't know how else to describe it to you. They are different things requiring different training for the dogs.

[LuvNewcastle]

9. They didn't need it to track blood.

They raided their house. They had access to clothing, shoes, toiletries, etc. It's old-fashioned, but it's pretty effective. Police depts. all over the country do it.

[Drahthaardogs]

11. Yeah but it was on pavement which really does not hold scent well

Lots of people confusing the track, etc. Blood tracking would have worked though, but of us who do blood tracking with dogs are rare.

[LuvNewcastle]

13. Didn't think about the pavement.

I can see how that would make it more difficult.

[s-cubed]

8. From what I have read, you are right about specialized training.

For example, cadaver dogs are just that. But search and rescue dogs do not follow a scent on the ground, they are trained to do air scenting, as they can cover a much larger area quickly. Such a dog could have gotten the scent at the abandoned SUV and then quickly tracked down the suspect. Perhaps the police just don't think of how well they do, perhaps none nearby. I'm just curious.

[Drahthaardogs]

12. It just does not work that way.

It is just complicated. I don't know how to explain it if you do not have a lot of experience in it. Scent is a really complicated thing. It is not like on the movies.

[byeya]

14. I've worked with air scent dogs and with blood hounds, but not as a handler/trainer. I've observed

that there are many false positives with air scent dogs(tricky micro wind currents probably) and the more sensory input the dog receives, the poorer the result. With bloodhounds, once they get on the track they are incredibly impressive in their speed and single-mindedness.
The question about the use of dogs here is a good one.

[Drahthaardogs]

16. They are hounds = stay on track.

Hounds are not stubborn, they do what they were bred to do. Get a track and stay on it no matter what. People interpret it for stubborness. My dogs, on the other hand, must air scent, ground scent, blood trail, plus do all of the retrieving work. It is much harder to breed for such versatility.

[byeya]

17. Such versatility is really impressive and I've not worked around dogs that can do that.

Mainly it's been bloodhounds in rural or wilderness areas and they certainly have my respect. They will go through greenbrier thickets, rhododendron "hells", blackberry cane slopes, you name it - if the person you're after went there the dog wil lead you there; and, you've got to keep up to protect the handler from the person you've after(if it's that type of situation).

[pasto76]

28. SAR canines are more often air scent dogs. there are trailing dogs too

depends on what the owner decides to train the dog in.

Genuine SAR, not a sheriff's posse or 'sar trained' deputies (who are still primarily LEO), arent trained for manhunts, particularly not for armed and dangerous, fugitive murderer hunts. Imagine if you are the incident commander requesting untrained and unarmed civilians come into this operation. When I was IC for stuff, thats just not an option.

btw, Ive known more than a dozen air scent dogs who are also certified in water scent and certified for cadaver searches.

[lunatica]

6. I think I heard that they were using dogs

But so much was said in the 24 hour manhunt that I may be wrong

[Barack_America]

10. There were dogs all over the place...

...as to what they were trained to track, I don't know. But they were there, not sure why they didn't find him.

[Princess Turandot]

15. They use dogs to sniff for explosives, don't they? I thought it might be that.

[byeya]

19. I would think that a dog that can detect explosive material will be able to find it whether

it's in a bomb or whether it's on the hands of a person who has made a bomb.

[bettyellen]

20. they did have them searching for explosives yes... and felt that could possibly lead to suspect

because they were handling explosives the night before.
I don't think they knew he was bleeding, and blood dogs are different/ rarer than tracking dogs. Tracking dogs are not as effective in busy cities.

[byeya]

22. Thanks!

[bettyellen]

23. ;-)

[The Wielding Truth]

25. How long were the bombs placed before they were detonated?

[bettyellen]

26. no idea at all. or if it was remote or timer.

[applegrove]

18. I wondered the same thing. There was blood to follow too.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

21. One local reporter on the scene said it looked like there were more dogs than cops.

[bettyellen]

27. I know the NYPD has tons of bomb dogs now. we see them prior/ during POTUS visits, after work at

WTC and at the other end of the trains on Monday. Very common at major travel hubs during the last ten years. I wonder how sensitive they are.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

29. They were good enough for the Nazis....

Cue Godwins Law.

[jbond56]

24. They had lots of dogs

Listening to the scanner each strike force had a dog. They also had dogs in reserve. Seems like every lead they sent a bomb dog first then the strike force went in. At shift change about 5 yesterday they had to relieve most of the dogs because they had worked 18 + hours. Sounded like they only had a few dogs after that and that slowed the final sweeps because they had to wait for the bomb dogs to be re deployed. It sounded like they had more tracking dogs than bomb dogs at that time.

[pasto76]

30. for all of the questions in here

there are SAR teams in every state. Most of them are volunteer. They do public appearances, especially the dogs since people love them, all the time for awareness and fundraising. Shouldnt be too hard to find your nearest team on google. tracking scent is a complicated thing, and understanding it, how the dogs work and how the handlers fit into that requires you to be educated in this. I seriously encourage all of you to look them up, donate a few bucks and ask all the questions you want. Maybe you will even start volunteering as a dog team assistant - which they all need.

fwiw, I was on an MRA team for 9 years, serving as a parking attendant during an incident all the way to Incident Commander (type IV stuff) on dozens and dozens of searches for missing, lost and dead people. All volunteer. Im certified in all kinds of boring ICS and FEMA stuff.

blood isnt 'scent' per se. when we talk about 'scent' we're talking about the millions of skin rafts that fall off you every second. that is what the dogs follow. Trailing or air scent. A very experienced handler once told me that one theory is that the dogs can actually smell the DNA in the skin rafts, which is how they can discriminate very accurately between people. So a 'false positive' as mentioned in this thread is the wrong language. skin rafts can catch, pool and accumulate in odd places depending on a hundred variables. If a dog has a scent, and alerts at a bush in which no one is hiding, that isnt a false positive. That is a positive hit on scent. How that scent got there is up to the handler and others to try and figure out.
It is even possible that a tracking dog could have followed this guy's scent and alerted like crazy two houses away, or even walked right by the boat where he was hiding. there are conditions where the scent does not have a straight line back to the subject. search dogs also have a return behavior that they do for their handler to say 'hey! ive found the source of my scent, follow me!'. Police dogs seem to bark like crazy and attack. The two are not compatible behaviors that cross the spectrums into the different fields. Bomb dogs are trained to sniff bombs. They _could_ also be used to sniff for people. The amount of training for each discipline is enormous, and it would be rare if a police officer could find the time to do both and remain proficient.