Search dogs’ training is as important as it is gross

SALT LAKE CITY — It’s the time of year when we head out into the wilderness to explore, but we don’t all make it back alive. Utah Search and Rescue dogs can find our bodies, but not without some gross training.

 

Misty is a Border Collie, and her handler is Bart Esplin. The pair, along with Moki the Golden Retriever and handler Glen Gantz, are Cache County Search and Rescue volunteers.

 

They find us, alive and grateful, or dead and stinky.

 

“The human body, during the course of decomposition will put out more than 400 different compounds over time,” Esplin said. “And they don’t all happen at once.”

 

And dogs aren’t born knowing those smells. So Gantz said they have to … “expose our dogs to as many different sources of human decomp that we can.”

 

“The more that we can train them on, the better their catalog in their library is,” Esplin said.

 

To get reference odors of bodies in various states of smell, Esplin and Misty travel.

 

“There’s a place in San Marcos, Texas called the body farm.”

 

Gantz and Moki just got back from a seminar in Indiana, where Moki got to smell about 50 bodies.

 

“Since we can’t train on all of them, we’re trying to train on enough of them that our dogs can generalize,” said Gantz. “So they smell something that they haven’t smelled before, but it’s like, this is close enough to a human odor that I’m going to tell my handler that he needs to come check this out.”

 

For local training, Esplin said they use donated parts.

 

“Teeth that have been pulled, lipo from fat removal … Placenta’s pretty easy, but a lot of doctors don’t want to let people walk off with their knee or their hip.”

 

During one training, they used some tummy tuck given to them by a plastic surgeon.

 

 

The dog’s motivation is that they get to play with their handlers and toys if they find people.

 

Gantz started on Search and Rescue for joyful family reunions with the living, but “it wasn’t long before I realized how important it is for people who have passed away to have closure for their families also.”

 

If you’d like to help, you can donate money. Or body parts you’re done using.