Photo By Sgt. Anthony Herrera | US Army Pfc. Anahi Segovia, a dog handler assigned to the 93rd Military Working Dog...... read more read more
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FORT STEWART, Ga. – Members of the 93rd Military Working Dog Detachment, and civilian law enforcement agency Scent Evidence K-9 from Tallahassee, Florida, hosted a week long Scent Discrimination Tracking and Trailing Course here to expand the repertoire of what our MWD are capable of achieving.
Five teams of Dog Handlers and their MWDs from across the country that have been identified with a specific genetic coding best suited for this exercise were invited to attend this training.
By using the Scent Evidence K9 Research (SEKR) scent evidence vacuum, a portable device that collects uncontaminated odor during investigations, the instructors were able to extract human scent from items like bullet casings, articles of clothing and pieces of cloth. MWDs and their handlers are then released into an urban environment in order to trace the odor to its corresponding scent or origin.
“Every person has their own scent, just like their DNA,” said Paul Coley, CEO of Scent Evidence K9. “So, we’re training these dogs to take a scent collected from either the individual or something they’ve touched or a place they’ve been. We then present that to these dogs, and have the dogs trailing to the source, or to the target in uncontrolled environments.”
The week-long event began with slowly introducing and imprinting a certain scents onto the MWDs. They then trace the scent for a distance of only a few yards. The instructors then gradually extend the length of the target while simultaneously introducing misleading variables. This routine will continue until the final day of their training where a culminating event will determine whether or not the dogs and their handlers are certified. On the final day, the teams will have to travel over a mile, collect odor, determine where to deploy the MWD, handle their dogs in an effective tracking and trailing manner, and target one person in an urban setting.
“When soldiers go missing, using this method, we can get access through their first sergeants to their barracks room,” said Army Staff Sgt. Warren Bolden, Fort Stewart kennel lead trainer. “We can pull odor off of, for instance, their pillow or their laundry bag, and we can deploy three teams here at Fort Stewart in all different areas of the base, and we can confirm if the soldier has been in this area or if the soldier has not been in this area. If that soldier is in the area, the longevity of the training allows these dogs to locate suspects at three, four, five miles away.”
The training began on Monday, September 16 and continued until their final certification on Friday, September 20.
| Date Taken: | 09.19.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 10.01.2024 15:55 |
| Story ID: | 481605 |
| Location: | FORT STEWART, GEORGIA, US |
| Web Views: | 41 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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