Florida’s Bringing The Lost Home Program Reaches 600th K9 Search Milestone

Tallahassee, Florida (Mar. 10, 2026) – Escambia County Sheriff’s Office Dep. Kathryn Touchstone and K9 Buster, a scent discriminate Beagle, reported 2 successful search deployments in 1 Week to achieve trail #600 and #601 by Florida Bringing The Lost Home Program partner agencies! Dep. Kathryn Touchstone and K9 Buster reached and surpassed the milestone with their help in the location and safe recovery of a missing elderly person with Alzheimer’s Disease and a missing 4-year-old child in the same week.

Dep. Touchstone and K9 Buster are one of our top performing K9 Trailing Teams in the country and will be attending the 6th Annual Bringing The Lost Home Summit in Tallahassee March 17-19, 2026. They were the #3 Team in our 2025 Top Dogs (and Handlers) list with 10 Finds for the year!

Escambia County Sheriff’s Office K9 Team Uses SEKR to Locate Elderly Missing Person in Freezing Temps

Dep. Kathryn Touchstone and K9 Buster, a scent discriminate Beagle, responded to help locate a missing elderly woman with Alzheimer’s Disease who had wandered off at 5:30 am on 1/31/26. Wind chill was at 18 degrees. The woman had been missing for 1.5 hours prior to deployment. Dep. Touchstone used The SEKR Scent Evidence Vacuum to collect a scent article from a pillow on the couch where the woman sleeps. Touchstone presented the scent jar to K9 Buster who trailed through the neighborhood where the woman typically walks. During the trail witnesses said they saw someone matching the woman’s description walking westbound earlier that morning. The Escambia County Sheriff’s Office K9 Team redeployed on the main road just outside of the neighborhood and Buster picked up the trail. They trailed for 1.22 miles on hard surfaces in heavy winds and turned at an intersection to see the elderly woman coming towards them on a bicycle.
“Dep. Touchstone and K9 Buster used the SEKR to get the best possible scent article before deployment. They used their advanced scent discriminate trailing skills to persevere through the extreme cold temps and high winds and trailed to the missing person and returned her safely home.” stated Scent Evidence K9 CEO Paul Coley.

The K9 Teams that contributed to the achievement are from Sheriff’s Offices and Police Departments in 28 Florida Counties that are participating in the Bringing The Lost Home Program. The lifesaving community safety program provides missing person response training, advanced scent discriminate K9 training, scent collection technology, and Scent Kit program resources through the highly successful Bringing The Lost Home Program legislative bill. The Program is championed by Florida House Representative, Rachel Plakon and is in it’s 7^th year of service to Florida communities.

Scent Evidence K9 CEO, Paul Coley, Senior Resource Alliance – Orlando CEO, Karla Radka, and Liberty Partners of Tallahassee have partnered on the bill to continue providing critical services that help law enforcement agencies and community organizations better serve their populations with Alzheimer’s Disease/Related Dementia and autism who are at high-risk of wandering. Florida’s 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 scent trailing recognition assessments, K9 and Handler training, and innovative scent collection technology. “We are honored to partner with the amazing K9 Teams and agency leaders who are putting in the hard work and training needed to achieve these excellent results. Our mission is to expand the program across Florida to save more lives and create safer communities,” stated Coley.

Here are a few of the many highlights of the Florida Bringing The Lost Program K9 Teams that worked to achieve the #600 milestone.

Kissimmee Police Dept. Bloodhound Team Locate Missing 86-Year-Old with Alzheimer’s Disease

Ofc. Andrew Cason and K9 Belle, a Scent Evidence K9 trained Bloodhound, responded to help find a missing elderly woman who had wandered from her daughter’s home and had been missing for an hour. Cason collected a scent article from the woman’s pajama pants and deployed K9 Belle who trailed a half mile and located the woman sitting at a bus stop. K9 Belle trailed straight to the woman and gave the sit alert to identify the target. “K9 Belle was trained to sit when she reaches the target to reduce any potential trauma from a missing person who may be confused or agitated. Our Bloodhounds often become comfort animals when they locate someone,” stated Scent Evidence K9 CEO Paul Coley. K9 Belle was donated to Kissimmee Police Dept. by our Florida Bringing The Lost Home Program partner, Senior Resource Alliance in Orlando to increase available search resources in the area for missing persons and those with Alzheimer’s Disease and autism who are at high risk of wandering. This is find #7 for the scent discriminate Bloodhound team and #599 by our Florida Bringing The Lost Home Program partners!

Scent Evidence K9 and Rep. Rachel Plakon Meet Hundreds of Kids at Children’s Day at the Capitol and Storybook Village

Bringing The Lost Home Program Champion Rep. Rachel Plakon stopped by the Scent Evidence 9 booth to meet our future lifesaving Bloodhound pups in training, K9 Nexus and K9 Abbey. 2500 people attended the annual event in Tallahassee, and we’d like to thank those that stopped by to meet the pups and learn how they use their super sense of smell to help find them if they go missing or get lost. Thanks to all of our newest Rex The Rescue Pup Deputies who received their badge stickers today. Florida’s Bringing The Lost Home Program has located almost 600 missing persons across the state, many who are at high risk of wandering. Thank you to the Children’s Week organizers and all of our hardworking Bringing The Lost Home Partners, legislators, responders, caregivers, children, and families who joined the fun today.

Lee County Sheriff’s Office Bloodhound Team Locate 78-Year-Old Missing for 22 Hours

Lee County Sheriff’s Office Bloodhound Team Locates Missing Endangered 78-Year-Old! Dep. Robert Elwell and K9 Remington responded to help locate an elderly man with a neurocognitive disorder on 1/28/26. After an exhaustive large-scale, multi-agency search throughout the day and overnight, the missing man was located safe thanks to the incredible scent discriminate trailing efforts of Dep. Elwell and Bloodhound partner K9 Remington. The elderly man was located in thick foliage and transported to a local hospital where his condition was reported as stable.
Dep. Elwell is a Scent Evidence K9 Master Handler with dozens of missing person recoveries and suspect locations to his credit. Lee County Sheriff’s Office is a Florida Bringing The Lost Home Program partner agency and posted an amazing video of highlights from the search and location on their Facebook page. The lifesaving K9 Search also made national news in People magazine Click HERE to read the People article.

Bloodhound Boomer Uses Scent Kit  To Locate Missing Person with Alzheimer’s and Missing 10-Year-Old with autism!

Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office Bloodhound Team Uses Nose on the Ground and Eyes In the Sky to Quickly Locate Missing Teen in Freezing Temps.

Cpl. Steven Sella and K9 Zoe, a Scent Evidence K9 trained Bloodhound responded to a disturbance on 2-1-26 involving a 17-year-old juvenile who fled a supervised residence on foot. Due to the juvenile’s age and circumstances, an immediate search effort was initiated. The youth left out of the rear of the residence through a window. The temperature outside was only 32 degrees.

Cpl. Sella and K-9 Zoe deployed after collecting a scent article belonging to the missing juvenile. K-9 Zoe began trailing from the rear of the property and continued through surrounding streets toward a nearby park. During the track, K-9 Zoe lifted her head, at which time an aerial drone that had been launched, quickly identifying movement consistent with an individual attempting to conceal themselves just outside the park. Shortly thereafter, the juvenile fled on foot into the park. K-9 Zoe immediately re-engaged the trail and continued working through the park as deputies coordinated a perimeter.

As the search progressed, the drone provided updated overhead intelligence, allowing ground units to anticipate the juvenile’s movement. The juvenile was walking right back towards Cpl. Sella and K-9 Zoe. K-9 Zoe gave a strong proximity alert near a walkway that led to a Gazebo in the park, and deputies made visual contact with the juvenile, who was taken into custody safely and without incident. This successful outcome highlighted K-9 Zoe and the aerial drone technology working in collaboration together leading to a safe and successful outcome.

St. Johns Sheriff’s Office Bloodhound Team Locates Bailout Suspect Hiding Under Pine Straw!

Jacksonville Bloodhound Teams Bring The Lost Home!