Fourth Annual Bringing The Lost Home Summit Hosts Top Florida Scent Discriminate K9 Teams
Tallahassee, Florida (Mar. 28, 2024) – Scent Evidence K9 hosted the Fourth Annual Bringing The Lost Home Summit in Tallahassee March 19 – 21, 2024 to build advanced scent discriminate K9 search skills, recognize missing person response successes, and share the best practices of agency participants and community partners. Since the Bringing The Lost Home Program was introduced in Florida in 2019, 323 people have been found and thousands at risk of wandering in Florida communities are better prepared and protected by the resources provided by the Bringing The Lost Home Program.
K9 teams from 20 participating Florida Sheriff’s Offices, Police Departments, and The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission were invited to attend the fourth annual event and share their lifesaving K9 search results and best practices with other agencies around Florida. Participants had the opportunity to build their K9 search skills through advanced scenario-based scent discriminate trailing exercises to support the program’s goals of improving missing person response capabilities, K9 search recovery success, and community awareness of Florida’s vulnerable populations with Alzheimer’s Disease and autism who are at high risk of wandering and going missing.
The Summit agenda included a half-day focus group on March 19, 2024, beginning at 9:00 am with presentations by The Alzheimer’s Project CEO, John Trombetta, Florida Dept. of Elder Affairs Dementia Care and Cure Initiative Coordinator, Amber Ladd, and Florida Dept of Law Enforcement’s Leigh Clark that discussed the program’s impact on Florida communities and introduced resources available to help responders locate missing persons.
The K9 Teams then attended a special Advanced K9 Trailing scenario-based training seminar with Scent Evidence K9 CEO, Paul Coley and Tallahassee Police Dept. Det. Paul Osborn, to further their K9 search capabilities in missing person deployments. The team’s trained for a variety of complex missing person response scenarios in Tom Brown Park, the former Winewood Office Complex, Cascades Park, Governor’s Park, and other areas around Tallahassee. The scenarios were designed to enhance investigative skills in highly contaminated search environments. “The Summit scenarios utilized real-world obstacles and advanced situations to help the K9 search teams overcome extreme challenges when they deploy,” stated Scent Evidence K9 CEO, Paul Coley. Volunteers from The Alzheimer’s Project, FDOEA, and FDLE were trail layers during the seminar and played an important role in creating real life scenarios for the K9 responders.
The K9 Teams also worked on their scent collection techniques using a variety of recommended methods including The SEKR Scent Collection Vacuum. “We say Good Start, Good Finish, Bad Start, No Finish in our training program because what you do when you arrive on the scene, the time you take to get the best scent article, and the evidence you collect is crucial to a successful outcome when lives are at stake,” said Coley.
Florida’s Bringing The Lost Home Program bill has worked to implement scent discriminate K9 search resources for Sheriff’s Offices in Leon, Orange, Bay, St. Johns, Sumter, Seminole, Lee, Charlotte, Putnam, Osceola, Broward, DeSoto, Nassau, Franklin, Marion, Flagler, Highlands, Baker, and Duval Counties. Learn More HERE
Agencies participating in the program have seen large increases in their K9 search response success rate and many of the K9 Teams have multiple lifesaving missing person recoveries to their credit. So far this year, the number of missing persons located has climbed to 323 , as of this article, and the number of finds is rapidly increasing.
Scent Evidence K9 CEO, Paul Coley, and The Alzheimer’s Project CEO, John Trombetta, partnered to introduce the Bringing The Lost Home bill to help law enforcement better serve their populations with Alzheimer’s/Related Dementia and autism who are at high-risk of wandering and going missing. The Bringing The Lost Home Program enhances missing person response capabilities and recovery success by raising missing person awareness, mitigating risk, and improving search performance through the use of missing person response training, scent discriminate K9 trailing, and an innovative Scent Kit program that helps to create missing person awareness and provides an effective way for families and caregivers to prepare for a wandering event before it happens.
The program is focused on recovering individuals who have a propensity to wander or elope with a rapid response and recovery. The program provides Scent Preservation Kits® or “Scent Kits” to families with loved ones living with Alzheimer’s Disease or related dementia (ADRD), and autism. The Scent Kits allow families and caregivers to pre-collect a person’s unique scent in a special jar and store it for up to 10 years. The Scent Kit also includes an Individual Preparedness Plan flash drive that caregivers can use to provide search responders with accurate identification information. Having the Scent Kit prepared in advance gives K9 search responders the tools they need to find a missing person fast and bring them home safe.
The Alzheimer’s Project identifies groups and areas in need of services and works educate residents about the Scent Kits and Missing Person Awareness for at-risk groups. They also provide Alzheimer’s awareness training to the participating agencies to help mitigate potential trauma to the individual and expand law enforcement interaction skills with a person who has dementia.
Bringing The Lost Home Program also includes Missing Person Response Protocol and Scent Discriminate K-9 Trailing training for the participating agencies which will impact law enforcement response capabilities by increasing search success and decreasing the time and resources needed to find missing persons.
Protecting and Recovering People At Risk of Wandering.
Florida has the second-largest Alzheimer’s Disease population in the U.S. with over 580,000 residents living with the disease. That number is projected to climb to 720,000 by 2025. Studies show that 60% or 3 of every 5 persons with Alzheimer’s Disease or dementia will wander and go missing. The numbers are almost as high for children with autism. The American Pediatric Association states that 50% of those with children with autism will wander/elope and go missing at least once before age 17.
Scent Evidence K9 CEO, Paul Coley, a former FBI Forensic Canine Operations Specialist, has made it his company’s mission to not only improve missing person response capabilities for communities but to protect individuals before they go missing.
