Lee County Sheriff’s Office Bloodhound Teams Use Scent Kit Collection Tech To Find Trailing Success
Lee County Sheriff’s Office Bloodhound Teams Use Scent Kit Collection Techniques To Find Trailing Success – 3 Scent Discriminate K9 Teams from Lee County Sheriff’s Office reported 48 successful trails using Scent Evidence K9 Scent Preservation Kits in 2024. The K9 Teams used the absorption method to collect scent articles using the kits. “The absorption method is part of our advanced scent collection technology training. It’s a way for K9 Teams and investigators to collect uncontaminated scent articles at the scene before the K9 Teams deploy,” stated Scent Evidence K9 CEO, Paul Coley. Lee County Sheriff’s Office K9 Teams received the training as a Bringing The Lost Home Program partner agency in Florida.
DFC Robert Elwell and K9 Remington reported 25 successful trails in 2024. DFC Austin Fearns and K9 Maggie reported 18 successful deployments, and DFC Ryan Dekeyser and K9 Mercy reported 5 successful trails. The reported data included confirmed trails, subjects located, and evidence located. “We count on the data from our agency partners to help us develop better scent collection technology, scent discriminate K9 training, and more efficient response protocols,” continued Coley. The deployment reports from LCSO contributed greatly to pushing Florida’s Bringing The Lost Home Program search deployment success past the #500 milestone.
The Lee County Sheriff’s Office Bloodhound Teams attended a regional Bringing The Lost Home Scent Discriminate K9 Trailing Seminar with Coley in April 2025. Charlotte County Sheriff’ Office hosted the seminar that also included K9 Teams from Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office and Hendry County Sheriff’s Office. DFC Robert Elwell, a longtime Bringing The Lost Home partner, was presented with his Master Handler Certificate for outstanding scent discriminate K9 search deployments. “We are proud of the hard work and commitment to excellence by these Bloodhound teams. They are using their scent discriminate training to complete successful search deployments and their data reporting is helping others save lives and create a safer community,” stated Coley.
