NorthWest Search Dogs Wilderness/Area Air Scent Teams

NorthWest Search Dogs

Oregon and Southwest Washington's Finest Working K9 Teams

Wilderness/Area Air Scent Teams

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When planning a search operation, Incident Command (IC) relies on the local Search and Rescue (SAR) resources available to carry out an effective search. Understanding the scope of a resource's capability is crucial to determining its fit in the overall search strategy.

NorthWest Search Dogs is a collective of K9 handlers who have developed and maintain a high degree of skill and competency in their K9 Wilderness/Area Air Scent search teams.

NorthWest Search Dogs sets demanding training and proficiency standards and as a result is able to field K9 teams adept in Wilderness/Area Air Scent search as a professional, reliable search resource to law enforcement agencies.

Wilderness/Area Air Scent Team Capabilities

Wilderness/Area Air Scent team K9s are trained to locate the source of any live human scent in a given area. These K9s may also be cross-trained to locate human decomposition scent.

	Wilderness/Area Air Scent K9 teams work effectively with other SAR resources
	K9 teams can deploy day or night
	Teams area highly effective for use in 'hasty' search efforts - capable of covering large areas quickly
	Teams are prepared to be operative for 4 to 8 hours at a time
	Teams are on call 24 hours a day

The training of NorthWest Search Dogs K9 teams is focused on the detection of live human scent present on air currents, ground trails, articles or evidence. Teams can be used to search wilderness, rural or undeveloped suburban areas for lost or missing persons, Alzheimer and dementia victims and to aid in efforts to locate evidence or articles bearing live human scent.

K9 teams are a highly effective tool when used early in a search to perform 'hasty' coverage of high probability areas as well as for large area coverage throughout an ongoing search.

K9s are imprinted on cadaver scent and may be used in conjunction with human remains detection K9 teams in searches for possibly recently deceased lost persons and suicides.

K9 teams train to search in variable terrain, weather conditions and environmental situations, day or night. K9 team training simulates as closely as possible the variables that can be encountered on actual searches so they are prepared to develop the most effective search strategy.

Scent Information

Live human scent is the vaporous, cellular and bacterial debris shed continuously by humans at the rate of approximately 40,000 cells per minute. This is also referred to as 'raft' and it is chemically unique to each person.

These cells or 'raft' are carried away from the human body on air currents forming scent cones or scent pools and may also drop to the ground remaining on vegetation and soil forming a trail or ground scent.
Terrain, temperature and humidity can impact the movement of a scent cone or pool. Rain and ground water run-off can transport or disperse a scent trail.

Scent Cones and Scent Pools

Email: nwsdk9s_wm1@nwsdk9s.org

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