Bay County K9 Team Finds Missing Suicidal Child
The Bay County K9 Team of Cpl. Jeff Duggins and K9 Ronnie found a missing suicidal child in early Oct. Bay County Sheriff’s Office Cpl. Jeff Duggins and K9 Ronnie assisted in the search of a missing child that led to her location and safe return. Cpl. Duggins and K9 Ronnie confirmed the trail of the missing child using scent collected with the Scent Evidence K9 Scent Kit and the scent discriminate K9 training BCSO received as part of the Bringing The Lost Home Project earlier in the year.
The NEWS-HERALD in Panama City reported the story of the life-saving K9 search. Read the article HERE.
Cpl. Duggins was recognized by Scent Evidence K9 on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020, and CEO, Paul Coley, presented him with the SEK9 Master Handler certification for his exceptional K9 deployments.
Bay County K9 Team and the Bringing The Lost Home Project
Cpl. Duggins and K9 Ronnie participated in specialized human scent discriminate K9 and handler training designed to enhance the BCSO capabilities to find missing persons and bring them home safe. as part of the Bringing The Lost Home Project Bill. Scent Evidence K9 partnered with The Alzheimer’s Project on the bill which was signed by Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis, in late June 2019 and was sponsored by Florida House Representative, Scott Plakon. Bay, Seminole, and Sumter County Sheriff’s Offices were selected as recipients of the Scent Discriminate K9 and Missing Person Response Protocol training provided by Scent Evidence K9 as well as Scent Kit® programs for each community that distributes 3000 kits to people with Alzheimer’s Disease and autism who are at risk of wandering. To read the full article CLICK HERE
The K9 training helped to cross-train patrol dogs like K9 Ronnie for scent discriminate search deployments. Scent Evidence K9 CEO, Paul Coley, who provided the training said, “Sheriff Tommy Ford and the BCSO K9 Unit bought into the concept right away and showed tremendous enthusiasm and progress during the sessions. I had a good feeling that it wouldn’t be long before they had a find and saved a life!”
Human Scent Discriminate Trailing uses a person’s unique odor to locate them and to a properly trained scent discriminate K9, it’s as identifiable as a fingerprint. Traditional tracking uses footfall and ground disturbance to track a person. “Our Scent Discriminate training methods give a K-9 team several advantages such as the ability to search in a variety of weather conditions over longer spans of time,” said Coley.
As the first of the 3 Florida counties to receive training, Bay County presented a few new challenges. The K-9 Unit consisted of 2 Bloodhounds and 5 patrol dogs (Malinois and Shepherds). “Bloodhounds are the Cadillac of Scent Discriminate dogs and are uniquely built for trailing. While I have trained many other breeds in Europe with great results, I was excited to see how the patrol dogs would adapt to the new training,” stated Coley.
Congratulation to BCSO K9 handler and leader of the BCSO K9 team Cpl. Jeff Duggins and his K9 Ronnie. Cpl. Duggins and Ronnie helped find a missing child in Alabama last week. Today they got an award, making us very proud.
Posted by Bay County Sheriff's Office on Thursday, October 15, 2020
BCSO Featured in Police K-9 Magazine
The patrol dogs and their handlers were successfully completing scent discriminate trailing exercises after only one day and the usefulness of the training was quickly apparent to the K-9 teams in all 3 Florida counties. The training led the K-9 teams through a vigorous program of trailing exercises and scent collection techniques, including the use of The SEKR, a new scent evidence collection vacuum developed by Scent Evidence K9. Bay County Sheriff’s Office teams saw immediate results with 2 confirmed finds within hours of participating in the training.
The successful scent discriminate training program soon led to a full-length feature in Police K-9 Magazine.
GREAT WORK BCSO K9 Team! Thank you for working to keep your community safe and for saving lives.
