#1Nonfiction: Will Ceci be seduced by ax crimes, buried girls & mushy poems? Will she fall head-over-ass into a forbidden love affair with Jack? Or will she continue down an entirely prudent and reasonable path?
Everything is real.
Everything is tru...
Cadaver Dogs are often the spear tip of human remains detection.
Cadaver dogs and their handlers are trained to track and locate decomposing human remains. Dogs are not selected and trained based on high intelligence or breed. Trainers want a dog who is untiring, driven, and confident. Formal training often begins at age 8-10 weeks. Sessions are 8 hours a day. If the dog is not washed out, basic scent tracking takes about a year and a half, after which dogs are given a major, like explosives, or cadaver recovery. Trained dogs are sold to handlers for $6000 to $10,000.
Specific cadaver detection training is demanding and precise. Trainers use human remains, including human bones, teeth, placenta, blood, and used prosthetics. These remains can be expensive and hard to obtain, so training is often conducted with human blood donated by team members. In some states, body farms are maintained to study the process of human decomposition. These facilities are also used to train cadaver dogs.
The University of Tennessee's Anthropological Research center has identified approximately 480 compounds that are released by decomposing humans. From this type of research, artificial scents have been developed for training dogs. It is particularly vital that cadaver dogs not alert to other dead mammals. Handlers and law enforcement cannot afford a forensic exhumation for a dead cat. The danger of this kind of mistake during a disaster in a collapsed building can be catastrophic.
Due to the great responsibility placed on cadaver dogs, they are not given any clues during training and are carefully reprimanded for false alerts. Advanced training includes the intentional use of distracting garbage, rotten food, and animal carcasses. When a cadaver or a piece of human remains is located, dogs are trained to passively alert so as to not alter or destroy the evidence at the scene.
Handlers also undergo intense training. They must be competent in criminal forensics and have a basic understanding of human anatomy. They must be experts at mapping, search techniques, and recovery. They need a professional understanding of geography, geology, and human exhumation. They must have experience in being able to spot and identify remains that have been severed, mutilated, and exposed to animals, insects, and the weather. And they must be able to keep up with a dog driven to find dead bodies.
The dogs have a powerful sense of smell. Studies indicate it may be hundreds of times more sensitive than the human nose. There are instances where dogs have located human remains buried more than 30 feet deep. Detective Balsam described dogs finding bodies 70 feet deep. Cadaver dogs are believed to be more than 90% accurate when they signal that they have found human remains. Performance can be further boosted through the use of drilling and soil venting. However, in the vast majority of cases where dogs are called in, human remains are not found. This does not mean that the dogs failed. Most often, it means the lead was false, or the remains have been moved.
Sunday, June 12, 2016
Jack
PS: Got Justin to the softball game, but the girl bailed. Matchmaking is hard, subject to teenage caprice, and the pay is shit.
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
Jack
Cops just found an ankle and foot inside this boot. Found in the mountains last week.
Not our case.
The foot matched a kid in his 20s who went missing this winter. Cadaver dogs have been dispatched to find the rest of him.
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[Used with permission from The Mountain-Ear, Barbara Lawlor, and by courtesy of the Boulder County Sheriff's Office. 2016]
[⭐Vote⭐ for our best friend, Dogs!!]
Photo: German Shepherd by skeeze, 2014 (Pixabay #900220).
