K9 Officer Rescues Lost Non-Verbal Child by Following the Boy’s Scent in Reverse to Find His Home
By Andy Corbley – Jul 25, 202
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In North Carolina, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office received a call that a child was wandering alone on the road on July 7th.
Dispatching an officer to the Waxhaw Indian Trail Road, the child was located and secured, but being autistic and non-verbal, the officer had no idea where the boy had wandered away from.
Being that the responder was a K-9 Unit, and was working alongside his trusty 1-year-old bloodhound Remi, Deputy B. Belk utilized the dog’s incredible sense of smell to “reverse” the normal scent tracking process to find the boy’s home.
“Normally, [scent dogs] track from where a person left to try to find where that person is currently. This time we were doing it reverse,” said Lieutenant Public Information Officer James Maye to CNN.
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Lieutenet Maye explained the technique of reverse tracking would now be implemented in the training curriculum for K-9 officers.
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Excellent work.
I can almost hear the dog’s thoughts now — “Yeah, I smell the scent and the person is right over there now. What exactly do you want me to find? Him? He’s over there.”
I don’t know how they communicated to the dog they wanted him to back track.
As a fellow with a six year old, I can COMPLETELY understand how a child can “disappear” in a heartbeat. Just recently I had mine “disappear” into the basement. Argh!
I can recommend Angel Sense tracking device as a service to make sure you know where the child is.
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Reinke Faces Life 