PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic What I did last weekend.

So this isn't exactly related to music but it's certainly off topic.

Many of you know that I'm training my dog Lilly for HRD. (human remains detection)

we spent the weekend out in the woods. 730 acres of woods, streams, a lake and fields. We arrived Friday afternoon and received a briefing on some missing campers.... 6 kids of varying ages and 2 with serious medical problems. We set out searching.... trying to determine what direction they might have gone. It was well after midnight before we were recalled to command. We used air scent tracking and trailing dogs to get some idea where they might have gone.

Saturday morning, we were back in the field with hounds. Saturday afternoon it was determined that several of the kids may not have survived the night and my dog (HRD) was sent out to find the body of one of the girls where the hounds had indicated she might have gone. Hounds only track living people.

So, as we were loading into the transport vehicle, it started raining. We searched the area where we were instructed to search and spent a good hour in the rain, poking through briars and thorn bushes and high weeds. We found nothing and called command for further instructions. They expanded our search area to include a section of woods between the ball fields and the clear cut along the stream. Within 5 minutes of moving to the new section we located the missing victim.

It was a good weekend of training. The outcome of the training scenario was that 2 of the kids didn't make it but 4 did. We continued the live tracking into Sunday morning when we had a dry sunny morning. Out of concern for the actual kids who were playing the parts of the survivors, we pulled them from the woods or didn't put them out to start with in the rain. So the dogs that were tracking them were following at least a 24hr old trail that had endured 5 hrs of rain..... amazing dogs.



This is Lilly. This was a photo from last year's SAREX. I rarely get pics of my dog when she's working because I'm too busy watching her for body language changes that tell me she's "in odor" as we call it. It's subtle and if I'm not paying attention it's easily missed. This pic was taken above the lake and in the general area where she made her find this year. Sunday morning, we did some HRD training. 3 small sources in a wooded half acre section. All dry bone.... which is low odor.... humans can't smell anything at all.... Lilly went first so she didn't have any "dog scent" to follow. I put her in the wooded area and she had all 3 bones indicated within 3 minutes or so. She's come a long way. The first find was 15 seconds into the sector. Very quick and very impressive.

We had a team from Georgia (non-K9) come up and participate, and individuals from several other states as well as a number of people from our own team were there. We always train with K9's so it was good to get out and do some man-tracking on foot. Totally different set of skills. Personally, I'll defer to the dogs on that skill.

Last year was a bad year for our team for a number of reasons.... medical and personal for our leadership, but this year we're hoping things go better and we can train more often. My hope is that very soon, perhaps before the summer gets here, Lilly and I will get the chance to take the NASAR K9 HRD Land certification. That lets us become "operational" on our team.

A lot of valuable lessons learned..... gotta have rain proof gear (gloves were the weak link) ..... you won't find a missing person where they are not, you only find them where they are. Not every search finds someone, in fact most don't, and when you do, the results are not always good....and having an HRD dog.... that's how our searches usually end.

But we had fun. Anyway, that's what we did this weekend. Lilly was one happy critter to get back to the house.... just saying.... so was I.

Very interesting read. I love dogs and respect what they can do. What you're doing certainly falls under the old cliche "It's a dirty job but someone has to do it". This is the definition of a community service. Sad, but also vital. It's gotta be tough to find a child like that.

Bob

fortunately, the bodies we had to find were training mannequins and not deceased kids. we're certainly a different breed because our discussions over a meal involve such topics as the various stages of human decomposition up to and beyond liquifician... the kind of stuff to which my wife would say " do you mind? we are eating here."

Dogs are SO much smarter than people. I see it with mine every day. Just the things she does in her day to day routine. She can't see yet comes to find me to get things she wants but can't reach, like when she hides bones and they fall to a place where her snout won't fit. Police dogs, service dogs, and yours is a cross between those two, just fascinate me.

You've probably read "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers"? I enjoyed learning about this topic. https://www.amazon.com/Stiff-Curious-Lives-Human-Cadavers/dp/0393324826

Excellent. I voted many, many times for Lily in that competition of 2016

I placed it in my amazon cart for the next time I order something. We study and discuss those sorts of things all the time. In fact there are several "body farms" around the country, with one being here in western NC run by a university, that allow HRD dog teams to come and train on various occasions. They study human decomp in a variety of settings.... surface, buried, clothed, wrapped in plastic, warm, cold, dry humid... taking scientific readings and recording everything and documenting it for forensic studies. Morbidly fascinating.

I certainly appreciate that. They closed it for law enforcement only, for the last one. I think they had a bunch of K9 SAR teams get in and our team was in the top 10 the entire time. They probably didn't expect that. Since the company sponsoring it sells it's services to law enforcement mostly, they wanted a law enforcement agency to win it.

Herb,

what impresses me about you is that you are very high-functioning in a bunch of different directions. Whatever you set your hand to do, you do it with all your might. It is a rare individual who absorbs information the way you do. This is just one more way in which you have earned my respect.

It's interesting to me that this forum has a number of such people.

Now that right there is a high compliment..... thank you

Dogs are so fascinating! My friend's dog is trained as a police dog. It's so amazing what great senses our canine friends have!

I like dogs because they wag their tails instead of there tongues ....

I’ve spent only very short stretches of my entire life without a dog and I’m on the porch with our border collie as I type. We love dogs and everything they can do and enjoy reading about their amazing variety of skills.

Thanks for sharing your and Lilly’s story. And cool that she's smiling for the photo

J&B

Wow - this was incredibly interesting to read! I so often forget just how capable and intelligent dogs can be.

several team members have Border Collies. they're amazing dogs.

yeah... Lilly is doing a Mona Lisa kind of smile....

My two wonderful pups, coming home from a spa day with the groomer. Charlotte Ann (on the left) is a Black Mouth Cur and Bella Donna (on the right) is Black Mouth Cur/American Bulldog mix.

They are strong and lithe, wonderful around kids, and a joy to have in the family.

Yes, dogs really are amazing.

My border collie and keeshond. They love to ride with me in the convertible....

Dogs are indeed family... sometimes more so than our own flesh and blood. I know that's true for us.

Have you heard about the 2 year old German Shepard that was shot three times, and lived, protecting his teenage owner? +++ Home Invasion Hero Dog +++

yep....