LAND O' LAKES, Fla. -- The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office unveiled a new program Thursday, that could help them locate people who go missing a lot faster.
It’s not exactly a high-tech solution. It involves their bloodhounds and the human scent. But it might just save enough time to save someone’s life.
Buster is a 2 1/2 years old, 122-pound pure-bred bloodhound with a nose that’s made for tracking people who disappear -- which happens a lot more often than you might think.
“Over 1,200 times in the past year we were called out for missing people,” said Pasco Sheriff Chris Nocco.
Buster is a big part of the sheriff’s new program that will distribute "scent kits" to about 200 people who are already part of the agency’s Safety Net program.
Safety Net uses transmitter bracelets to track down missing Alzheimer’s and dementia patients, as well as people on the autism spectrum who tend to wander off.
“The faster we can track them, the faster we can find them,” said Nocco. “The faster we save them.”
The scent kit is definitely low-tech, but it’s highly effective. It uses a swab of a person’s scent, collected ahead of time by deputies and preserved in a glass jar. A single sample can last up to five years.
The idea behind the scent kit is to give K-9s like Buster a pure scent to work with. That is – something uncontaminated by anybody else’s scent. And with that, Buster is nearly 100 percent accurate.
“Odor is individual. Like a snowflake,” said Pasco sheriff’s Cpl. Jimmy Hall. “And the dog’s olfactory system is set up so much more superior than ours that he can actually identify those individual people from the odor.”
Deputies demonstrated how it works. Buster got a quick whiff of a swab inside a paper bag and was off and tracking. His nose down, his tail up.
Minutes later, he found his target -- Sgt. Ben Brige -- hiding behind a building in a nearby field.
Amy McMurchy is the mother of a special needs child and a teacher at Interactive Education Academy in Valrico, a school that works with kids at all ends of the autism spectrum. She thinks the scent kits are smart, saving time - and possibly lives.
“I mean, we hear stories all the time about kids that wander too close to water. They don’t know how to swim,” said McMurchy. “I mean there’s a lot of instances.”
For now, the scent kits are free for those already part of Pasco County’s Safety Net program. Citrus County is doing something similar.
They can also be purchased online through the Pasco sheriff’s office website, or by calling (727) 815-7119.
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