Scott County K9 Tactical Search Team

 

The rationale behind using a trained search team is that rather than having an ad hoc group of people searching in an unplanned and loosely supervised fashion, possibly destroying evidence and clues along the way, we have a group of professionals, trained in search techniques, equipped to deal with what they find, and following a focused search by a highly trained search dog.

The team is in constant communication with each other and with the Incident Command structure.

Whether the search is for a fugitive or a missing person, the search techniques are the same, making the probability for success much greater than with a hastily formed group of well-meaning, but untrained novices.

 

Human scent is composed of dead skin cells and vapors from sweat, body oils, genetic make up, and environmental factors like a person’s diet, cosmetic products and soaps used on the body. This makes a scent unique to the individual.

The human body sheds dead skin cells at a rate of 100,000 per minute while a person is at rest, and over 10 million per minute when a person is running. The most volatile and lighter cells decompose and disappear, while the heavier cells fall to the ground and continue to give off scent for many days.

 

Once on the ground, scent will last for many days until acted upon by some force like wind, moisture, temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, and time. Moisture can actually enhance scent by revitalizing it and rain forces the airborne scent to the ground increasing its potency. The key to a successful K-9 search is having an uncontaminated scent source that the dog can then match to a scent found on the ground, leading to the missing person.