Dogs

sarx said:

It certainly would be nice to hear the LE side of this regarding the "investigation". The reports all read that there was no investigation after the dogs worked (but we'll never really know what went on unless they say something). Could this be totally false? Sure, why not. Is it? No idea.
I don't know that other people are speaking for what the dogs did, only trying to make guesstimates with the reports that are available. That's pretty much what goes on here. Without having the reports or insider knowledge that's what you do.

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SuziQ said:

Dogged faith in these trackers

The family of Amber Dubois say the two canines who searched for their daughter were close to finding her. But bloodhound handlers are skeptical.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dogs5-2010apr05,0,4183800.story?page=1&track=rss

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K9-Chaser said:

Something that is interesting is that if those handlers admit that this aged work can be done, then the question arises as to why their dogs aren't doing this work. This can be a problem ... have seen this happen before.

But more importantly to note, this is not the only aged work case that VK9 has done - it is the most publicized (Amber's case), yes, but this work has been done repeatedly.

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sarx said:

Thanks for posting that SuziQ, interesting to say the least.

I would really like to hear more about the police shutting down the search. It's been my experience that if you're cruising along the side of a rural road, not asking them to block the roads or go on private property that LE doesn't generally care or get involved. I'm not sure what the handlers were doing that would have gotten the search shut down. Speculating here, but maybe they wanted to run a cadaver search in the area of the houses where the dogs stopped, which would have involved all kinds of private property.

The part about the scent trail only lasting 24 hours as quoted by the Univ of Georgia is just BS though. There are a lot of us who test on trails older than that, never mind working on them in live situations and training for them constantly.

There are so many parts of this I could tear apart, but there are also several things I agree with. Just the points above are curious to me.

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sarx said:

Yeah, that's all I ever read as well jjenny, but it seems that there's a lot of talk starting up about the dogs heading up the road, getting within a half mile and then either being pulled off by LE and the investigation or because of private property or some other reason. Maybe all that was being kept a secret for the last 8 months for some reason?

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sarx said:

The most recent article from a few days ago
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dogs5-2010apr05,0,4183800.story?page=2

snipped
The dogs failed to find a scent trail leading out of the town, which left three possible scenarios

This article seemed pretty in depth "as if" the writer had talked to the handlers recently, though this could be another mistake I suppose too.

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Tink56 said:

Sara Platts from the K-9 Search Group was just on LA's KFI 640 "John and Ken" show. She restated numerous times that the dogs were following live scent. I didn't understand her explanation of how the dogs "trailed" the scent on the freeway.

The handler left the impression that she believes that Amber was alive in August and probably being "held" somewhere near or on the reservation. Unlike the publicist who said the tribe was accommodating and "seemed to be expecting" this type of search, Sara stated that the tribe is a closed community and wouldn't allow free access to them and/or the police. I'm not sure what that meant or if I understood her meaning correctly.

She is most anxious for the final autopsy, especially the TOD estimate.

I'll post the link when the interview is available on line.

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sarx said:

I could only find info on them doing cases that were a month old, can you point me in the direction of other cases that were in the six month range? TIA

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Tink56 said:

Sara Platts from the K-9 Search Group was just on LA's KFI 640 "John and Ken" show. She restated numerous times that the dogs were following live scent. I didn't understand her explanation of how the dogs "trailed" the scent on the freeway.

among trailing dogs this is a form of 'drop trailing'. It is not used in the tracking circles. It is used when the person being followed is only capable of going in one direction and is used to cut out time and distance on long trails. The dog is started on the trail and after a DOT is established, halted, and moved forward up the trail and "dropped" at a point where the subject would have had to pass or at a decision point where there is the option for the person to change their direction. If the dog locates the scent and forward trails again the trail is continued enough to confirm DOT, the dog again halted and again moved forward on the trail and 'dropped' at the next decision point. As you are moving forward if you 'drop' the dog in a location where the dog cannot re-acquire the trail, the team then returns to the last known location of scent and the work continues on foot.
Some dogs, especially those with tracking training, appear to have problems with 'drop trailing' due to all the starting and stopping because it changes the "rhythm" of the trail as well as having to establish a DOT in the middle of a track as opposed to having a starting location with a track out.
This is also how most car trails are work due to the distances involved.

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Natal said:

The problem with that is she would have been in a vehicle, so there would have been no scent to follow.

If you read that article it is clear that most other people who work in this field don't believe that these folk's dogs tracked her.

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sarx said:

There is scent that comes out of a car.

The questions really are more about the age of a trail and the combination of age and car trailing (because there is limited scent coming out of a trail).

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