LEBANON, Ind.–If someone goes missing in Indiana, two more officers have just been added to the team that might help find them. Chance and Makaya are 11-month-old bloodhounds. They came from Florida in October, to join the Boone County Sheriff’s Dept.
The Scent Sniffers
The pups were donated by an organization called Find ‘M Friends. They specialize in helping to find missing kids and missing elderly people.
“We also use the bloodhounds for criminal activity. So, if a suspect runs from a car or a house, burglarizes a house, we’re able to use the bloodhounds along with the utility dogs in our department to find these people,” said Sgt. Ryan Musgrave, one of the handlers.
Clint Stewart, a detective with the department, and also a handler, said there are fewer than 10 bloodhounds working as police dogs in Indiana. He knows of only 7 and just three in central Indiana.
“Our administration and our sheriff has given us the green light that if any county in Indiana and, depending on the situation, even out of state, if we are needed, then we are to go,” said Musgrave.
“I had a suicidal female who took a bunch of prescription pills and ran off into the woods. So, the bloodhound, and I used her door handle, the outside locked door handle of her car, as a scent article and was able to track her down almost a quarter mile into the woods,” said Stewart, in a video shown at a news conference about the dogs Wednesday.
The department became aware of the program last year when Nancy Reagan, a concerned citizen, told them about scent kits. The department purchased 3,000 scent kits to give away, and then started looking into getting the dogs.
The Scent Kit
“Inside the scent kit is a glass jar, with a 4 X 4 gauze pad and sterile gloves,” said Musgrave. If you get a kit, you swab your child or elderly relative with the gauze, then store it in the jar just in case they ever go missing. The bloodhounds then have a scent to use to track them.
You can pick up the kits at the sheriff’s department, fire stations or the hospital in Boone County, if you live there.
PHOTOS: Chris Davis
